1 27 694
JOHN
KING OF ENGLAND
JOHN T. APPLEBY ft*
KING OF ENGLAND
NEW rORK:ALFRED A
PIAM IN MEMORIAM PATKIS MEI
FOREWORD
OF ALL the Kings of England, none, with the possible exception
of William Rufus and Richard III, bears a worse reputation
than John. How much of that reputation is based on the known facts
of his life and how much on Shakespeare's play it is hard to say, but
it is safe to assert that many more people have read the play than have
read a history of Johns reign. The general reader, however, could
probably sum up his knowledge of King John in three statements:
he ordered Hubert de Burgh to blind the young Arthur, he signed
Magna Carta, and he lost all his treasure while attempting to cross
the Wash.
What are called the known facts of his life are largely the accounts
given in the contemporary chronicles. These were all written by
viii Foreword
monks who were without exception hostile to John, mainly because
of his long struggle with the Pope, and the intemperance of their
language when they speak of him leads one to suspect that they were
far from objective reporters of his actions. Thus, from the very start,
one has to depend upon violently prejudiced writers and to bear con"
stantly in mind a suspicion, to call it no more, that the worst side of
Johns character and the worst possible interpretation of his actions
are being given.
Shakespeare's play, from which the popular picture is drawn, is
based on Bishop Boyle's Kynge Johan, a ludicrous attempt to present
John as a thirteenth-century Henry VIII, anticipating the break with
Rome by three centuries. Shakespeare discarded much of the religious
polemics, but he retained Bayle's garbled version of the history of
Johns reign.
While I was reading these two plays and attempting to discover
to what degree they followed history and in what respects they di"
verged from it, I realized how little information about King John is
readily available. Kate Norgate's John Lackland was published in
1902, has long been out of print, and is not easily accessible in this
country. Dr. Sidney Painters The Reign of King John is a book of
profound scholarship, but it does not attempt to present the events
of Johns life in chronological sequence. Other than these, I know
of no modern biographies of John.
I turned then to the contemporary chronicles, mainly those of
Roger of Hoveden and Roger of Wendover, and attempted to as-
semble from them an account of Johns life. This book is the result
Foreword ix
of my readings in those chronicles, supplemented by occasional in-
formation from such other contemporary writers as Qerald of Wales,
Richard of Devizes, Ralph of Coggeshall, and the authors of the
lives of St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, and of William Marshal. I
have also made use of a number of letters from the Close and Patent
Rolls. Whenever possible, I have quoted those letters in full, both
because they are not generally accessible and because the language
of the letters themselves is much more interesting than any paraphrase
could be.
This life of King John is addressed to the general reader and not
to those having expert knowledge of the history of England during
the Middle Ages. It therefore does not have the usual scholarly ap<
paratus of footnotes and bibliography. In the words of one of Miss
Compton'Burnetts characters: CC I put things from several into an*
other, and then it is called a biography"
Many people have helped me in the writing of this book, and
to all of them I am grateful I am particularly grateful to the staff of
the Library of the University of Arkansas, who made their facilities
available to me, to Dr. John Clark Jordan, Dean Emeritus of the
Qraduate School of that University, who suggested the possibility of
this book to me and who listened patiently as I discussed the prob*
lems I encountered, and to Joseph Michael Lalley, Esq., who offered
many helpful criticisms and suggestions.
JOHN T. APPLEBY
CONTENTS
I. John, Count of Mortain ( 1 1 67-1 1 84) 3
II. John, Lord of Ireland (1185-1186) 25
III. "John, my Heart" ( 1 186-1 1 89) 35
IV. 'The Struggle with Longchamp ( 1 189-1 192) 42
V. The Ransoming of Richard ( 1 1 93-1 199) 62
VI. John, King of England ( 1 1 99-1 200 ) 79
VIL The Loss of Normandy ( 1 2001 20 5 ) 99
VIIL -The Canterbury Elections ( 1 20 5-1 207) 129
IX. The Interdict ( 1 208-1 209 ) 151
X. 'Excommunication (1209-1212) 1 64
XI. Submission (1212-1214) 187
XII. "The Field Called Runnymede* (1214-1215) 219
XIII. 'To Qod and St. Wulfstan" (121 5-1216) 242
APPENDix:-The Qreat Charter 276
INDEX following page 3 1 9
JOHN
KING Of ENGLAND
CHAPTER. I
JOHN,
COUNT OF MORTAIN
1167-1184
OHN S coming into the world attracted little attention
outside Queen Eleanor's bedchamber. As the fourth son of
Henry II, with three vigorous brothers ahead of him in the
succession, he seemed destined for a life of relative obscurity, with a
chance earldom as his highest lot. And for thirty years John remained
obscure, almost unnoticed beside his father, one of the greatest rulers
England has ever seen, and beside his older brothers, violent, charm-
ing, turbulent, bickering, dazzling figures who crowded their young-
est brother off the stage. When at last, after almost thirty-two years
of dwelling in the shadow, he came to the throne, all Europe still
shone with the light from Richard his brother, and in that light John
looked dark indeed. In an age when the fighting man was supreme,
who could hope to measure up to Richard of the Lion's Heart?
And yet John must have had some small share of the quality that
enabled Henry and all his other sons to capture men's hearts and
hold their imaginations. Throughout his life Henry loved this young-
est son, and John's faithlessness broke his father's heart, whereas the
treachery of the other brothers could inspire Henry only to furious
fighting and wild curses. Perhaps Henry loved John just because no
one else did. Certainly his mother did not, for Eleanor, after Henry
turned to other women, saved all her affection for Richard. After
their father's death, Richard treated his brother with a half-contemp-
tuous affection and never seemed able to take John and his plottings
quite seriously. Henry chose as his friends the best and wisest men
of the kingdom; Richard consorted with the bravest of fighting men
and the best poets and musicians of his age; but John seems to have
had no friends except such dubious characters as were drawn to him
through self "interest.
John was suspicious of all men, as well he might have been, for
he grew up in an atmosphere of treachery and of internecine warfare
in which the sons fought now their father and now each other and
transferred their allegiance at a moment's notice, Richard learned
from such experiences to be a judge of men; John learned merely to
distrust all men.
At the time of John's birth in 1 1 67, his father, Henry II, was
thirty-four years old and had been King of the English for thirteen
years. He was a man of boundless energy who lived in a whirlwind
of activity. He could not bear to be still for a moment, except when
he was reading; he sat only when he ate. Even when he was hearing
Mass, he spent more time conferring with his officials than in fol-
lowing the service.
Hunting and books were his favorite pursuits, and he is said al-
ways to have had either a bow or a book in his hands. He could not
endure a settled routine; he dragged his court at breathless speed
over the length and breadth of England and of his vast continental
domains. This constant moving from one place to another, although
not always at the restless pace imposed by Henry, was a normal fea"
ture of the royal household during these times, both in order that the
-1184] John, Count of Mortain 5
King might hear the more difficult cases and dispense justice in the
various courts, and because it was easier for the household to visit in
turn the royal manors, which were scattered all over England, and
consume their produce on the spot, than it would have been, in an
age of slow and laborious travel, when carts could cover little better
than ten miles a day, to haul the produce from the four corners of
England to some place where die court might be permanently
established.
Even when Henry summoned the great men of the realm for a
council, he would often ignore their assembly and hunt from morn"
ing till night.
His temper was of great vehemence, and he would sometimes
fall to the floor in fits of rage and gnaw the rushes in his wrath. All
the members of the House of Anjou were subject to such fits of rage
and had such violent emotions generally as to lend credibility to the
legend that there was a diabolic strain in their ancestry. Gerald of
Wales tells the story thus:
A CERTAIN Countess of Anjou, of great beauty but of unknown
origins, whom the Count had married solely because of her
beauty, rarely went to church, and when she was there she
showed little or no devotion. She never stayed in the church till
the secret Canon of the Mass but always left immediately after
the Gospel. This habit was observed both by the Count and by
others with great wonder. At length, one day when she had
come to church and was making ready to leave at her accustomed
time, four knights, by order of the Count, seized and held her.
She quickly threw off the cloak by which they were holding her,
and, snatching her two little sons, who were under the right-
hand fold of the cloak, under her right arm and leaving behind
her two other sons, who were standing on her left, in the sight
of all present she flew away out of a high window in the church.
Gerald adds that Richard frequently referred to this legend, say"
ing that it was not to be wondered at that the sons were constantly at
war with their father and with each other, since they had all come
from the Devil and to the Devil they were all going.
Henry's affections were equally strong. Throughout his life he
lavished his love upon his sons, who in their turn did everything in
their power to forfeit it. He was loyal to his friends, and it is to his
credit that he counted among them the best and most honorable men
of his time. He scorned the outward state and majesty of kings; his
manners toward his people were of perfect familiarity, and he was
accessible to all at every hour of the day and night.
In an age when clothing was simple, Henry was noted for his
careless dress. Both men and women of the richer class wore an
ample robe, reaching to the ankles, with sleeves to the wrist, and
gathered at the waist in loose folds by a belt or girdle. Over this, in
cooler weather, they wore a cloak or mantle with a hood, held to-
gether at the throat or shoulder by a brooch. Henry was known as
"Court Mantle' 3 because he introduced from Anjou the fashion of
wearing a mantle reaching only to the knees, instead of the ankle-
length one usually worn in England. The dress of the two sexes was
differentiated rather by color and ornamentation than by cut, al-
though about this time women began wearing long pointed sleeves,
often with close-fitting undersleeves. Men wore green or brown
ordinarily; scarlet on great occasions.
When they were riding, men wore a knee-length tunic with a
short mantle. The working classes wore a knee-length tunic like the
still surviving smock, and ankle-length breeches cross-wrapped to
the knee with thongs. What underwear, if any, was worn is not
known. Probably women wore a sort of shift and men some sort
of drawers.
Keeping warm through the winter was always a problem. The
houses, even of the greatest, consisted only of a large, high-roofed
-i r S^J John, Count of Mortain 7
hall, rather like a barn or a small church, in which all the life of the
household was carried on. Only recently had a separate bedroom
for the master and mistress been introduced, and the rest of the
household slept on the rushes of the floor. In the larger establish'
ments food was usually prepared in a separate small building. When
John had his houses at Marlborough and Ludgershall repaired in
1204, he ordered that a new kitchen be built at each house for pre<-
paring his dinner, with a "furnace" in each one large enough to cook
two or three oxen in. In the smaller houses the cooking was done
over the central fire in the hall. Meals were eaten off trestle tables
set up for each meal. Stools and chests, with perhaps chairs of state
for the lord and his lady, completed the scanty furniture.
The drafty halls were heated by log fires in the center of the stone
floor, with the smoke left to find its way out of an opening in the
roof as best it could. Men tried to keep warm by wearing more and
heavier robes and fur-lined cloaks. People lived so much out of
doors that they were hardened by exposure, and a man like Henry,
with his rough, red hands and weather-beaten face, would probably
not have looked for much more comfort indoors than could be found
under the shelter of a tree in the forest.
The author of the life of St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, tells how
Henry, when he was angry with the prelate, summoned him to his
presence. When Hugh arrived, he found the King and his attend"
ants sitting in a circle on the ground. Henry had ordered everyone to
ignore the Bishop, and his greeting was not returned. Hugh sat on
the ground next to the King, who had borrowed a needle and was
mending a hole in his glove. Hugh watched him in silence for a
while and then remarked: "How like your cousins of Falaise you
are!" This was too much for Henry's sense of humor, and he burst
into loud laughter, explaining to the circle that the Bishop was re-
ferring to William the Conqueror's mother, a woman of low birth
from Falaise, a place noted for its leatherworkers.
8 [1167-
Henry was as energetic in mind as in body. He brought to his
troubled kingdom, which had suffered from the anarchy and civil
war of Stephen's reign, a strong central government that proved an
effective check to the centrifugal tendencies of the feudal system.
Each baron had set himself up as an independent lord, administer-
ing his own brand of justice, coining his own money, and waging
war on his neighbors when the occasion permitted.
Henry put a stop to all that. He made his own courts supreme in
the land and gradually reduced the sphere of influence in which the
baronial courts could act; he sternly repressed private warfare and
demolished the castles of any barons who tried to practice it; he
made himself no mere feudal overlord but in truth King of the Eng"
lish, and he brought law and order back to a land sick of lawlessness.
The King's peace was once more supreme in England.
John's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, no less strong a character
than her husband, was certainly the most remarkable woman of her
age. As Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, she had been mar-
ried to Louis VII of France in 1 137 and had accompanied him to
the Holy Land when he went on the Crusade ten years later. Her
gay and lighthearted conduct with her troop of women attendants,
her frank enjoyment of the civilized pleasures of Antioch, her equivo'
cal relations with her uncle Raymond, Prince of Antioch, which
gave rise to ugly rumors of incest, and her Southern zest for life and
movement and excitement caused much talk among the crusading
host and much burning of heart to the sober, serious, devout Louis.
Eleanor, on her side, discovered that she had married a monk, as
she put it, and not a man. After they returned from the Crusade, the
marriage, which in fifteen years had produced no sons, was dissolved
on the grounds of consanguinity. The decree was pronounced on
March 21, 1152.
Shortly after the divorce, Eleanor offered herself and her great
-1184] John, Count of Morten 9
duchy of Aquitaine, which embraced most of southwest France, to
the young Henry, who had recently become Count of Anjou and
Duke of Normandy upon his father's death. He also stood a good
chance, as the oldest living legitimate male descendant of his ma-
ternal grandfather, King Henry I, of succeeding his cousin Stephen
as King of the English.
All this made him the most eligible young man in Europe; in
addition, he was a gay, handsome, dashing lad of nineteen, with the
dazzling reddish-gold hair, the clear gray eyes, and the strong, firm
body of the men of the House of Anjou. Although Eleanor was ten
or eleven years older than he, and although it was whispered that
she had committed adultery with his father, Geoffrey, when he was
Seneschal of France, Henry accepted her offer with alacrity. He was
not deterred by the example of his father, who had also married a
woman ten years his senior and had been forced to drive her from
his dominions. Eleanor's age meant little when Henry considered
the richness of her dowry.
They were hastily married in May ii$z, two months after
Eleanor's divorce. In rapid succession, Henry was formally recog"
nized as Stephen's heir, Stephen died, and Henry and Eleanor were
crowned King and Queen of the English in Westminster Abbey by
Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, on December 19, 1154.
Eleanor and Louis had had only two daughters in fifteen years of
marriage, but she bore children to Henry with almost clock'like
regularity. Early in 1153 (too early for decency, the gossips said)
she had a son, William, who lived three years; in 1155, an"
other son, Henry; in 1156, the first daughter, Matilda; in 1157,
Richard, the darling of her heart; in 1158, Geoffrey; in 1162,
Eleanor; and in 1 165, another daughter, Joanna.
John, the last of her brood, was born, probably at Oxford, on
Christmas Eve, 1 167. There is a tradition that he was baptized in
io I ii 67-
the great black basalt font that is still in the Church of the Preshute
in Marlborough. John was handed over to his wet nurse, after which
nothing more is heard of him for three years.
Remembering his own troubled youth and the difficulties that
beset his succession to the throne, Heny made repeated efforts
throughout his reign to assure the orderly division of his domains
among his sons upon his death. These efforts led him into great
trouble and were the root of the many conflicts of the sons against
the father and of the brothers among themselves that intermittently
troubled Henry's peace for the last twenty years of his life.
As the first step in this plan, on June 14, i 170, when Henry the
son was only fifteen years old, his father had him hallowed and
crowned King of the English at Westminster by Roger of Pont'
TEv6que, Archbishop of York, assisted by the Bishops of Durham,
Rochester, London, and Salisbury. On the day after the crowning,
Henry made his earls and barons pay homage to the new King and
renew the oaths of fealty they had sworn to him as Henry's heir as
early as 1162.
This act, which was without precedent in England, caused a great
deal of trouble, both then and thereafter. It was contrary to all the
customs of the English that the reigning king's intended successor
should be crowned while the king was still living. Furthermore, the
right of the eldest son to succeed his father was not yet fully recog'
nized, and the formality of the election of the new king by the peo"
pie, a reality until the Norman Conquest, was still observed. Henry's
action seemed to imply that the crown was his personal property, to
be passed on to whomever he chose. This violation of the ancient
customs of the kingdom was highly offensive to many of the English.
Moreover, to hallow and crown the king was the right of the
Archbishop of Canterbury alone. The quarrel between Henry and
Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was then at its height,
and Thomas was sulking in Self-imposed exile in Pontigny. From the
-i 1 5^7 John, Count of Mortain
i i
day of his consecration he had shown himself exceedingly jealous of
all the honors and privileges of his position, and this wanton flouting
of his most cherished right, demonstrating his pre-eminent place in
the Church in England, intensified the quarrel. The presumptuous
Roger and the assisting bishops, on Thomas's complaint, were
promptly excommunicated by Pope Alexander III, who likened
them to "rams having no horns/ 3
The third unfortunate effect of the coronation was that it made
an enemy of Louis VII of France. The young Henry, in further-
ance of his father's ambitious schemes of marriages for his sons, had
been married in 1 160, at the age of five, to Margaret, the daughter
of Louis by his second wife, Constance of Castille. This was an im-
portant union, both because it strengthened the ties between the two
rulers and because Margaret brought as her dowry the Norman
Vexin, a much-fought-over territory bordering on Henry's Duchy
of Normandy, about halfway between Rouen and Paris.
When Louis learned that his daughter had not been crowned with
her husband, he interpreted this perhaps as a repudiation of the
marriage and certainly as a slight to her. He at once assembled an
army and invaded Normandy. The elder Henry thereupon has-
tened to Normandy in July 1170 and made peace with Louis by
promising that he would have the young couple crowned together
in the course of the next year. He fulfilled his promise on August 27,
1 172, when they were crowned at Winchester by Rotrou, Arch-
bishop of Rouen.
The young Henry, however, was the one who suffered the most,
in the long run, from this ill-advised act. Although he was hallowed
and crowned King of the English, his father refused to let him exert
any real authority in the land whose crown he wore, and kept the
reins of government firmly in his own strong hands. During a reign
of almost thirty-five years, Henry spent only thirteen years in Eng"
land, yet even during his frequent and prolonged absences from the
iz
country he entrusted the government to his justiciars rather than to
his son.
The young Henry constantly begged his father to grant him real
authority over some portion of his inheritance, whether as King of
England, Duke of Normandy, or Count of Anjou, in reality and not
in name alone, so that he might settle down and gain experience in
government, but Henry refused. He preferred to keep his eldest son
in leading strings, rich in titles but poor in power and in purse.
Shortly after he had made peace with Louis, Henry became
gravely ill while still in Normandy. Fearing that he might die of his
illness, he completed the division of his lands among his sons that he
had begun with the crowning of the eldest. The young Henry was
to receive, in addition to England, Normandy and all the lands that
Henry had inherited from his father, Geoffrey of Anjou. Richard
received Aquitaine and the lands that had belonged to his mother,
Eleanor. Geoffrey, the third son, was given Brittany, which Henry
had been holding in trust for Conan the Little and his daughter and
heiress, Constance, together with the hand of Constance. Both
Richard and Geoffrey were to acknowledge their brother Henry as
their overlord. Thus Henry's great empire, which stretched from
Scotland to the Pyrenees, would in some measure be kept intact.
Now we hear of the young John for the first time since his birth*
To him was given, in contrast to the wide lands granted his brothers,
the County of Mortain, in Normandy. Although the title was an
important one, reserved for members of the reigning house of Nor*
mandy, it conferred more prestige than power, for the lands involved
were small in extent. Appropriate indeed was the epithet "Lack-
land" "J ean sans Terre" given him at the time.
Henry recovered from the illness that had occasioned this division
of his lands in time to celebrate the Christmas feast at Bures in Nor"
mandy, together with his wife and his sons Richard, Geoffrey, and
John, the newly created Count of Mortain, then three years old.
-1184] John, Count of Mortdn <- 13
The festivities came to an abrupt end, however, at the news of an
event that shocked all Christendom, Thomas Becket, with whom
Henry had effected a reconciliation of sorts during the preceding
summer and who had returned to Canterbury early in December,
refused to lift from the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of Lon-
don and Salisbury the sentence of excommunication laid upon them
by the Pope for their share in the crowning of the young Henry.
When the three bishops came to Normandy and reported this to
the King, he exclaimed in his characteristic headstrong fashion:
'What a parcel of fools and dastards have I nourished in my house,
that not one of them will avenge me of this upstart clerk! 5 * Four
knights of his household took these words literally, crossed over to
Canterbury, and murdered the Archbishop in his cathedral on
December 29.
Henry professed to be horrified by this barbarous deed, and in"
deed the brutal murder of a consecrated bishop within the hallowed
precincts of a cathedral was an act of savagery and of sacrilege that
would chill the blood of the most hardened. The King immediately
disclaimed any responsibility for the act. Although they had become
bitter enemies of late, Henry could not have forgotten that Thomas
had been his most intimate friend and companion during the early
years of his reign, and he must have grieved that his friend had met
so bloody an end.
Mere professions of grief were not enough, however. The Pope
threatened to lay all of Henry's lands under an interdict and to in-*
flict the dread sentence of excommunication upon the King himself
unless he did public penance and submitted himself unconditionally
to the Church. Before Alexander's legates reached him, however,
Henry embarked upon the conquest of Ireland.
He landed there in October 1 171, and the stormy winter weather
cut him off from all communication with his other domains for six
months. When he returned to Normandy in May 1 172, he immedi*
1 4 [1*67-
ately met the Pope's legates, disclaimed any complicity in the Arch"
bishop's murder, promised to do ample penance, and relinquished
his stand on those points that had been in dispute between him and
Thomas, Something more than remorse drove Henry to this sub'
mission; he suspected that a revolt was forming that threatened his
very crown, and he could not afford to be at odds with the Church
at such a time.
Henry's desire to provide further for his youngest son helped to
bring about this revolt, which had been brewing for a long time. It
had many causes, among which were the young Henry's desire for
some of the power to which his titles gave him claim; the enmity of
Louis VII, who lost no opportunity to encourage his young son-in-
law to rebel against his father; and the dissatisfaction of many of the
English nobles with Henry's stern measures to stamp out the lawless
habits contracted during the anarchy of Stephen's reign and to make
all men in England amenable to the law and to the royal authority.
Why Geoffrey and Richard should have joined in the rebellion is
not clear; perhaps they were urged to do so by their mother. The re-
volt, which spread all over the King's dominions, began as a result
of a marriage settlement that Henry proposed for John.
Shortly after the Christmas of 1172, which Henry and Eleanor
had spent at Chinon in Anjou, a town some twenty^five miles south-
west of Tours, and which the young Henry and his wife had spent
in Normandy, the two Henrys went to Montferrat in the Auvergne,
a place about twenty miles east of Grenoble. There they were met by
Humbert III, Count of Maurienne, and his eldest daughter, Alice.
Humbert's territories included the region between Grenoble in
France and Turin in Italy and were of great strategic importance be-
cause they held the Mont-Cenis pass across the Alps and hence com-
manded the entrance into Italy.
A betrothal contract between John and Alice was drawn up, ac-
-i 1 8^7 John, Count of Mortain i 5
cording to which Henry was to pay Humbert the sum of four thoU'
sand marks one thousand marks immediately, another thousand as
soon as Henry should receive the Count's daughter to bring up in his
household, as was then the custom, and the rest at the time of the
marriage.
The mark referred to was two-thirds of a pound, or thirteen shfll"
ings and fourpence. It was solely a unit of accounting. There was no
such coin; the only money minted in England at that time was the
silver penny. It is almost impossible to translate these sums into mod-
ern equivalents. One can best gain an idea of the value of money at
that time by considering some of the current prices for commodities
and services. During John's reign, oxen, cows, and bulls sold for
four shillings, sows and boars for one shilling, coarse<wooled sheep
for sixpence, and fine-wooled sheep for tenpence. The ordinary foot
soldier was paid twopence a day. The knight, armed and mounted
on his heavy war horse, was paid a shilling a day. The knight, a
trained fighter, had of course a heavy investment in his coat of chain
mail and in his horse, which was worth ten marks, or the value of the
knight's wages for more than 133 days, and he therefore commanded
a high wage.
The marriage provided for by this contract between John and Al-
ice was to take place as soon as Alice and John, who was then five
years old, reached the canonical age, or whenever a dispensation
might be obtained for a marriage at an earlier date. Humbert on his
side agreed that if he left no son, John should inherit all his domin"
ions and that if he did have a son, John should nevertheless have an
adequate provision of lands.
All would have been well if the matter had rested there. Hum-
bert, however, after the contracting parties had separated, began to
think things over, and it seemed to him that the wily Henry had got
the better of him. Although it would no doubt be a fine thing to have
1 6
a daughter married to a son of the King of England, the son was
after all only a fourth son with few possessions in his own right and
little prospect of more.
Humbert accordingly, in the following February, went to Li-
moges, where the two Henrys and Richard had met to receive the
homage of Raymond, Count of Saint Gilles, for Toulouse. There he
asked Henry how much of his own territories he intended to give his
youngest son, to match the proposed settlement of Maurienne upon
John, Henry replied that he planned to give John the castles and dis"
tricts of Chinon and of Loudun and Mirebeau, north of Poitiers.
These important territories, which Henry was now promising to
give to John, were a part of Anjou, and Anjou had already been
given to the young Henry, if his title of Count of Anjou meant any-
thing. Henry, now eighteen years old, would not consent to this
alienation of his lands, and he seized upon the opportunity to press
his father once more to assign to him some definite portion of his ter*
ritories Anjou or Normandy or England where he might take up
residence with his wife and exercise a real responsibility and jurisdic-
tion. The King again refused to give his heir outright possession of
any of his lands. The young Henry, after a violent quarrel, fled to
his father-in-law, the King of France, and, with Louis's help and en-
couragement, declared war upon his father, with the sworn intention
of driving him from France.
This was the signal for a general uprising. The young Henry was
joined by his discontented brothers, Geoffrey and Richard. Their
mother attempted to join them around Easter, 1 173. Henry had al-
ready grown tired of her. She was past fifty, and her husband did not
trouble to conceal his relations with other women. Jealousy no doubt
drove her from Henry, and her deep love for her sons, especially for
Richard, drew her to their side. She disguised herself as a man, started
to flee from Henry, and was captured.
Henry put her into confinement and kept her thus for the next
1 184] John, Count of Mortem 1 7
eleven years, while he lived in open adultery with Rosamund Clif-
ford, the "Fair Rosamund" of later legends and ballads. Gerald of
Wales says that at this time the King, who had heretofore lived in
secret adultery, now engaged in open and shameless relations, not
with " 'the Rose of the World/ as she is falsely and most frivolously
called, but with the Rose, indeed, of an impure man/' His play on
the name (Rosa mundi) can leave no doubt that it is Rosamund to
whom he is referring.
The rebellious sons were supported by the King of France and
his nobles; the King of the Scots joined in; a host of discontented
barons in England, Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine hastened to
overthrow Henry's firm rule, and the King was thus attacked from
all sides.
Pausing only to write letters to such of his fellow longs as he
thought might be friendly to him, telling of the misfortunes that had
befallen him and warning them against exalting their sons beyond
their due, Henry attacked the rebels with characteristic energy. By
Michaelmas, 1 174, he had defeated all his enemies and restored or-
der in his dominions. On September 30, at a conference held at a
place between Tours and Amboise, a treaty was drawn up be-
tween Henry on the one hand and his sons Henry, Richard, and
Geoffrey on the other, that restored everything to the condition in
which it had been a fortnight before the outbreak of the rebellion,
with a general amnesty on both sides.
One of the articles of this treaty made provision for the young
John. He was to have, in England, one thousand pounds of yearly
revenues out of the demesne lands, the castle and county of Notting-
ham, and the castle of Marlborough, which belonged to the royal
demesne and was the favorite residence of Henry, probably because
of the proximity of the royal deer park of Savernake. In Normandy,
John was to have one thousand pounds Angevin (four Angevin
pounds were worth one English pound) of yearly revenues and two
1 8
castles at the option of his father, and in the territory of his brother
Henry he was to have a further thousand pounds annually and a cas-
tle in Anjou, one in Touraine, and one in Maine.
Although these grants promised John a settled income and posi-
tion, the county of Nottingham in particular being a prosperous re-
gion, they nevertheless would not confer on him power, prestige, or
wealth remotely comparable to that of his elder brothers. John at this
time was less than seven years old, but his settlement was intended to
be permanent and final. The lands and revenues promised to him
were the most that he could hope to inherit at his father's death. Bar-
ring accidents, the young Henry was to be King of England, Duke
of Normandy, and Count of Anjou; Geoffrey would be Duke of
Brittany; and Richard, Duke of Aquitaine. Poor landless John, on
the other hand, would be merely Count of Mortain and lord of a
few scattered castles, dependent upon his brothers' good will for his
income.
However, the death of Reginald, Earl of Cornwall, afforded
Henry an opportunity to add to John's prospective fortune. Regi-
nald, a bastard son of Henry I and hence an uncle of Henry II, died
in July 1175. He had no sons, and this gave Henry a pretext for
seizing his lands. Henry kept most of them in his possession, intend-
ing to give them to John later. He granted Reginald's three daugh"
ters only small portions of their father's estate. Both the title and the
lands remained in the possession of the Crown till Richard, shortly
after his accession, gave them to John in 1 1 89.
Meanwhile Alice, the heiress of Maurienne, had died, and new
provision had to be made for a wife for John. A suitable match closer
to home was found for him. William, Earl of Gloucester, the son of
Robert of Gloucester, another bastard son of Henry I, had enormous
possessions in the west of England and in Glamorgan in Wales, and
he had no son to inherit them. Of his three daughters, two had al<
-i 1 84] John, Count of Mortem i 9
ready made suitable marriages. Mabel had married Amaurus, Count
of Evreux, and Amicia had married Richard, Earl of Clare. It was
now proposed that the third, variously known as Hadwisa, Avice, or
Isabella, should be betrothed to John. William of Gloucester, on
September 28, 1 176, agreed to give his daughter and all his lands to
John, provided that a dispensation for the marriage, which was
within the degree of kinship forbidden by the laws of the Church,
could be obtained. John and Hadwisa were second cousins, having a
common greatgrandfather in Henry L In return for the alienation of
all their father's land, Henry II agreed to pay each of the two other
daughters one hundred pounds a year.
John was in England for the Christmas feast of that year, and this
is the first mention we have, since his birth, of his presence in the
land over which he was later to rule. Of his childhood and education
nothing is known. Two of the King's sons, Geoffrey and John, kept
their Christmas with Henry at Northampton. The young Henry and
his wife were in Normandy; Richard was in his Duchy of Aquitaine;
and their mother was under confinement either at Salisbury or at
Winchester for her part in the rebellion of 1 173.
In the following May, Henry held a council at Oxford, and there
he created John Lord of Ireland. Henry had visited Ireland in 1 171
and 1 172, while he was waiting for the uproar over the murder of
Thomas Becket to die down, and had laid the foundations for the
English rule of that turbulent island. At this council at Oxford he
divided the Irish lands and established the feudal services due from
them. He had all men that held land in Ireland to do homage and
swear allegiance and fealty both to him and to John as Lord of Ire*
land.
Thus John, before he was ten years old, was far from being the
landless youngest son of his father's jest. He was Count of Mortain
and Lord of Ireland, and when he married he would hold the Earl-
20
dom of Gloucester, which would place him among the richest and
most powerful men in the country. The Earldom of Cornwall was
being held for him by the Crown, and he could look forward even"
tually to enjoying its title. He was still, or again, in England at Christ-
mas 1 178, for he spent that period with his father at Winchester.
The Christmas feast, as well as the feasts of Easter and Whitsun-
day, was always celebrated with great solemnity by the King and his
court, and the chroniclers of the time are careful to tell us where the
King celebrated the feast each year and what members of his family
were with him. Unfortunately, they do not tell us what they had to
eat, but we may presume that meat of as many kinds as were availa*
ble, washed down by great quantities of wine, made up most of the
meal. Venison, beef, mutton, pork, chickens, and geese, some boiled
and some roasted, much of it served directly on the skewers on which
it was cooked, and all eaten with the bare fingers assisted by knives,
appeared on the tables of the rich. Except for an occasional fowl or
hare, the paor ate meat but rarely, substituting cheese and eggs. Ani"
mals were killed in the autumn and salted down for the winter. The
wretched state of preservation of the meat accounts for the great value
placed on spices that would disguise the taste. Vegetables were few,
mostly peas and beans, and fit only for the tables of the poor and the
meager diet of monks. What we consider vegetables now would
probably have been classed then as "rude herbs and roots/' as the
author of the Qesta Stephani puts it, which only the starving would
eat.
The lack of green vegetables and fruits through the winter led to
outbreaks of scurvy among all classes. Apples and plums were about
the only fruits available. Sugar was rare indeed, and honey was used
for sweetening. Fish, both fresh and salted, was a welcome addition
to the diet and was of course the main dish on Fridays and through
Lent. Salt, procured by drying sea water in pans, was in great de*
mand for preserving meat and fish. The poor had to subsist mainly
-i 184] John, Count of Mortem
2 i
on peas, beans, and cereal grabs in bread and porridge, with very
small beer to drink.
The sudden death of the young Henry of a fever on June 1 1,
1183 moved John one step closer to the throne and also rid the fa-
ther of a son whose treachery, faithlessness, and lack of principle were
a constant grief to him. In keeping with John's increased importance,
Henry in the following month made another effort to provide still
further for him. Richard was now Henry's heir to England, Nor-
mandy, and Anjou, as well as Duke of Aquitaine, and Henry pro-
posed that he give up his Duchy of Aquitaine to John, who was to
hold it of Richard and do homage to him for it.
Richard was particularly attached to Aquitaine. He had reduced
the rebellious nobles to order and had made his authority felt
throughout the duchy. He had just succeeded in driving out the
forces of his older brother and his allies, and with this triumph still
fresh, he was in no mood to relinquish his duchy to his younger
brother. In Richard's fierce clinging to Aquitaine there was some-
thing more than the natural desire of a man to hold fast to that for
which he had been fighting strenuously for the past eight years. Rich-
ard loved Aquitaine, for he was a poet and a Southerner by tempera-
ment, and in the highly civilized society of his duchy, where music
and poetry were seriously cultivated, he was thoroughly at home. He
flatly refused to part with Aquitaine, and Henry, weary no doubt
of warring with his sons, did not want to resort to open force. He
did, however, give John permission "to lead an army into Richard's
land and get what he wanted from his brother by fighting him/*
This could hardly have been said seriously, for Richard had al-
ready proved himself a highly capable military leader whose prow-
ess his father had good reason to respect, whereas John was an un-
tried fledgling of fifteen. Nevertheless, John, taking the words
literally, appealed to his brother Geoffrey for help, and Geoffrey was
zz
delighted to have a pretext for attacking Richard and stirring up
trouble. He and John collected an army, which would indicate that
John already had some money at his disposal, and marched into
Aquitaine in June 1184, plundering and burning as they went,
Henry, alarmed that his jest should have been taken seriously, at
once ordered all three of his sons to come to him in England and
forced them to make peace among themselves.
What part John had in this military expedition is not known, but
one may assume that Geoffrey was the real leader. At any rate, John
gained nothing by it except a certain amount of military experience,
from which he would later appear to have profited little, and a more
wholesome respect for his older brother.
In the following December he had an opportunity to observe the
intrigues that accompanied the election of an Archbishop of Canter-
bury, when Baldwin, Bishop of Worcester, was elected by his
brother bishops. John, who was in London with his father and broth-
ers, followed their example and gave the new Archbishop "the kiss
of peace and love/' This election was the occasion for the usual
squabble between the monks of Canterbury and the bishops of that
province, each side claiming the right to elect the archbishop. It was
largely owing to Henry, who acted in a manner unusually tactful for
him, that the quarrel was composed. Henry ordered the bishops and
the monks of Canterbury to meet together in London and elect their
archbishop. The bishops, led by Gilbert of London, chose Baldwin,
one of their number, and presented him to the King. The monks re-
fused to concur in the election and departed in anger, proclaiming
their sole right to elect the archbishop and announcing their inten-
tion of appealing to the Pope.
Henry went down to Canterbury and persuaded the monks to
hold a separate election and nominate Baldwin. The monks, moved
perhaps at being entreated by a King who was more accustomed to
command, despatched their prior and the less infirm members of the
-i 1 84] John, Count of Mortem z 3
chapter to London with letters of confirmation. Meeting in the
Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, they elected Baldwin as
archbishop and then, to avoid the appearance of assenting to the pre-
vious election by the bishops, went through the formalities of sing-
ing the Te Deum and of presenting Baldwin to the King as the newly
elected Archbishop of Canterbury, The King again gave him the kiss
of peace and love.
Henry was pleased to consider this arrangement, according to
which neither the bishops nor the monks relinquished any part of
their conflicting claims, as a final reconciliation between them. He
solemnly confirmed it in writing and ratified it by oaths on the part
of Richard, Geoffrey, and John. Although John took no active part
in these negotiations, he could not fail to notice the squabbles, the
intrigues, and the jealousies that accompanied the election of the
archbishop. He observed the complicated machinery at first hand,
and the knowledge of its workings that he thus gained he put to use
when Archbishop Hubert Walter died in 1 205.
This ratification was made in the presence of a gathering that in-
cluded Queen Eleanor. She had been released from her captivity in
the preceding summer and had joined her eldest daughter, Matilda,
and Matilda's exiled husband, Henry, Duke of Saxony. They all
celebrated the Christmas feast together at Windsor.
John's childhood and youth may be considered to have ended at
about this time. The obscurity that veils these years is only natural,
for John, as the King's youngest son, would not be a personage of
great importance, and chroniclers were little concerned with such in-
significant affairs as the childhood, education, and training of a lad
whose portion seemed destined to be such odds and ends of his fa-
ther's territories as could be wrested from his reluctant brothers. He
was brought up partly in England and partly in Normandy; from his
earliest years he was a witness to the wars between his father and his
brothers and among the brothers themselves, and he figured as a
24
pawn in these struggles. Little is recorded to give us any impression
of John as a person in his own right. The one thing that does stand
out is Henry's affection and concern for his youngest son. The older
brothers, it is true, had already forfeited their father's love by their
concerted rebellion against him, and the fact that John was too young
to have been involved in it and hence was the only one of his sons
who had not borne arms against him probably accounts in part, at
least, for Henry's affection for him.
CHAPTER IJ
JOHN,
LORD OF IRELAND
1185-1186
O HN was knighted by his father at Windsor Castle on
Laetare Sunday, March 31, 1185. The conferring of knight"
hood had already become an elaborate ceremony, marking as
it did the end of a young man's apprenticeship to arms and his entry
into the warrior caste. It was given only to those of gentle birth who
had completed a rigorous course of training, usually in the household
of a great noble. The postulant was given a ceremonial bath, after
which he spent the night in the chapel, watching beside his armor.
Then he was clad in rich robes, the gift of the man who was to
knight him, and the sword of knighthood was girded about his waist.
When John was seventeen, an age at which he should have been
ready for the responsibilities of a man, Henry determined to send
him to Ireland. The idea of bringing Ireland under English rule oc'
curred to Henry shortly after he had been crowned. He brought the
matter up at a meeting of the Great Council at Winchester at Mich"
2 6 [u8s-
aelmas, 1155, but his mother, the Empress Matilda, whose opin-
ions on foreign affairs carried great weight with him, had been op-
posed to an immediate invasion of the island. To be prepared for the
future,, however, Henry sent John of Salisbury to Rome to get the
Pope's approval for the project. The Church in Ireland at this time
was sadly lacking in organization and discipline, and the Pope,
Adrian IV, himself an Englishman, no doubt welcomed the oppor-
tunity to reform it and bring it under more direct control. He ac-
cordingly issued the bull Laudabiliter.
ADRIAN THE BISHOP, the servant of the servants of God,
to his dearest son in Christ, the illustrious King of the English :
GREETINGS and the Apostolic blessing.
Laudably indeed and profitably does Tour Magnificence con*
template spreading your glorious name on earth and heaping up
a reward of everlasting happiness in heaven, since you propose as
a Christian prince to extend the boundaries of the Church, to de*
dare the truth of the Christian faith to a rough and ignorant peo*
pie, and to root out the weeds of vice from the field of the Lord.
In order to accomplish this more fittingly you ask for the advice
and favor of the Apostolic See. . . .
There is no doubt, as Your Nobility recognizes, that Ireland
and all the islands upon which Christ, the Sun of Justice, has
shone, and which have accepted the lessons of the Christian faith,
belong to the jurisdiction of the Blessed Peter and of the most
holy Roman Church. . . .
Since you have made known to us, dearest son in Christ, your
desire to enter the island of Ireland in order to make the people
subject to the law and to root out the plantations of vice, and to
exact from every household a penny a year for Blessed Peter:
We therefore, following your pious and praiseworthy wish
with fitting favor and receiving your request with gracious con*
-i 1 8 6] John, Lord of Ireland 27
sent, hold it pleasing and acceptable that you should enter that
island in order to extend the boundaries of the Church, to re*
strain the attacks of evil, to improve morals and foster virtue, and
to increase the Christian religion, and that you should do what*
ever concerns the honor of Qod and the welfare of that country;
and let the people of that country receive you with honor and
respect you as their lord, provided always that the right of the
Church shall be kept unharmed and complete, and saving the
yearly payment of one penny from each household to Blessed Pe-
ter and the most holy Roman Church. . . .
Henry did not make immediate use of this document, but it was
later confirmed by Adrian's successor, Alexander III, and played an
important part in bringing Ireland under English rule.
Henry apparently dismissed the subject from his mind until his at"
tention was called to Ireland by the arrival in Aquitaine of Dermot
MacMurrough, King of Leinster. Dermot, who had been expelled
from Ireland, came to Henry shortly after Christmas, 1 166, to seek
his help in regaining his kingdom.
Dermot MacMurrough, destined to go down in Irish history as
"the man who brought the Normans over/ 9 was at this time about
fifty'five years old and had led a turbulent life even for a twelfth"
century Irishman. Gerald of Wales describes him as a handsome man
of gigantic stature and with a voice hoarse from shouting war cries
in battle. He had abducted the Abbess of Kildare when he was only
twenty-two, and when the monastic community had tried to prevent
this outrage he had had 140 of them killed. He then set fire to the
monastery. He furthered his reputation for cruelty by blinding sev
enteen of the chiefs of North Leinster when they attempted to revolt
against his tyrannical rule in 1 141.
In 1 1 52 he perpetrated the act that settled his fate and, ultimately,
that of Ireland. While Tiernan O'Rourke, a chieftain in Meath, was
on a pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Purgatory at Lough Derg, Dermot
carried off his wife, Dervorgill, "with all her cattle and furniture/*
Dervorgill returned to her husband a year later, but Tiernan was de-
termined to avenge the insult. It is pleasant to record in passing that
after her husband's death Dervorgill entered the monastery of Melli-
font and lived to the age of eighty-four.
After long and bitter struggles, Tiernan O'Rourke, with the help
of Rory O'Connor, the last native High King of Ireland, succeeded
in driving Dermot MacMurrough out of the country in August
1 1 66. Dermot, accompanied by his beautiful daughter Eva, went to
Bristol to secure help in regaining his kingdom. Learning that Henry
was in Aquitaine, he followed him there, swore fealty to him, and
begged for help. Henry was too buacf-it that time with his continen-
tal affairs and with his quarrel with Thomas Becket to spare any
time for Ireland, but he received Dermot graciously and gave him
letters patent authorizing any of Henry's subjects who felt so in-
clined to help Dermot recover his lost possessions.
Armed with these letters and with Henry's expressions of good
will, Dermot returned to Bristol and entered into negotiations with
Rjchard FitzGilbert, Earl of Pembroke and Striguil, famous in Irish
history as "Strongbow." In return for Strongbow's help, Dermot of-
fered him the hand of his daughter Eva and promised that Strong-
bow should succeed him as King of Leinster. Strongbow agreed to
these terms, but, since he was out of favor with the King at the time,
he prudently stipulated that he would not go to Ireland till he had
received more explicit permission from Henry. Dermot also suc-
ceeded in getting promises of support from two half 'brothers, Robert
FitzStephen and Maurice FitzGerald, who were sons of Nesta, the
notorious Welsh princess who had been a mistress of Henry I.
Armed with these promises, Dermot returned to Ireland in August
1 1 67, and spent the winter at the monastery of Ferns, in Leinster.
His old enemies attacked him in the following spring and defeated
-ii S 6] John, Lord of Ireland zg
him again. This time he was allowed to remain in Leinster, but he
was forced to pay Tiernan O'Rourke a hundred ounces of gold as a
penalty for having carried off his wife. In 1 169 Rory O'Connor be-
gan organizing an expedition against Dermot, and Dermot sent let"
ters to his allies in Wales, reminding them of their promises of help.
To Strongbow he wrote: "The swallows have come and gone, yet
you are tarrying still/*
Strongbow was a cautious man. Gerald of Wales says that he was
better fitted for the council chamber than for die battlefield, and adds
that wherever his standard was displayed on the field, there was a
safe refuge for the wounded. Strongbow still preferred to see how the
land lay before he committed himself, but Robert FitzStephen as"
sembled a small force and lane * nfear Wexford on May i, 1169.
The allies succeeded in taking Wexford, which was given to Fitz"
Stephen, but Rory O'Connor later defeated them at Ferns. The
treaty drawn up after that battle left Dermot in control of Leinster,
but he was forced to recognize Rory as High King, to give his son
and grandson as hostages, and to promise to bring no more foreign"
ers into Ireland.
Shortly after this, Dermot was strengthened by the arrival of Mau"
rice FitzGerald and a fresh fighting force. He wrote again to Strong"
bow and began laying ambitious plans to conquer all of Ireland,
Strongbow availed himself of a halfhearted permission he had se"
cured from Henry, assembled a force of two hundred knights and a
thousand men-at-arms, and landed near Waterford on August 23,
1 170. This was the most potent fighting force that had yet come to
Ireland, and Dermot and Strongbow succeeded in capturing Dublin
within a month. True to his bargain, Dermot gave Strongbow his
daughter Eva in marriage.
Dermot and his new son"in"law set out to conquer Meath, to
which Dermot had no shadow of a claim, save that it was the lawful
possession of Tiernan O*Rourke, his bitter enemy. Rory O'Connor,
30 ii$-
as High King, warned Dermot not to invade other men's lands and
reminded him that he held his son as a hostage. Dermot vauntingly
replied that he claimed not only Leinster and Meath but the whole
of Ireland as well, and that he did not particularly care what hap*
pened to his son. When Rory O'Connor received this insolent mes-
sage, he promptly had Dermot's son put to death.
Dermot's sordid career was terminated in May 1 171, as the An"
nals of the Four Masters relate, when he died at Ferns "of an insuf-
ferable and unknown disease, for he became putrid whilst living,
through the miracle of God and the Saints of Ireland, whose churches
he had profaned and burned/' Strongbow succeeded him as King of
Leinster, but his pretensions were opposed by many of the Irish, who
united under Rory O'Connor in an effort to unseat him.
Meanwhile, Henry was watching all this with a jealous eye.
Whatever the terms of his permission to Strongbow may have been,
he certainly did not intend that one of his earls should set himself up
as a king in Ireland, and he saw in Strongbow's pretensions a threat to
his own designs upon the island. At a council held at Argentan in
July 1 171, he determined to go to Ireland and assert the authority
bestowed upon him by the bull Laudabiliter. He collected a fleet of
four hundred ships and an army of five hundred knights and four
thousand men-at-arms at Milford Haven. As soon as the prudent
Strongbow heard of these preparations, he hastened to Henry, laid
all his conquests at his feet, and did homage for the lands, embracing
most of Leinster, that Henry permitted him to retain.
The great expedition, intended to impress the Irish rather than to
overcome them in battle, landed near Waterford on October 17,
1171 and quickly had its desired effect. The Kings of Desmond and
of Thomond came at once and did homage, and as Henry proceeded
slowly to Dublin many other native chiefs followed their example.
Henry built a fine palace in Dublin after the native fashion, and
there he spent the winter, entertaining the native princes, receiving
-ii 8 6] John, Lord of Ireland 3 i
the homage of the Irish, and apportioning the land among his Eng-
lish and Norman followers and such of the Irish as were willing to
swear fealty to him. The bishops, among whom the bull Laudabttiter
had no doubt been circulating, were particularly eager to recognize
Henry as lord of the land.
The Council of Cashel, held at Henry's instance during this win-
ter, introduced much-needed reforms in the Church in Ireland and
brought it into conformity with the discipline and uses prevailing in
the Church in England. All this was reported to the Pope, Alex-
ander III, and in due course he confirmed the bull Laudabiliter and
directed the Irish bishops and princes to be steadfast in their loyalty
to King Henry.
Great storms that winter cut Henry off from communication with
his other lands. With the spring came ominous news of the attitude
of the papal legates who were waiting in Normandy to investigate
his part in the murder of Thomas Becket. Threatened with excom-
munication, Henry made his arrangements for leaving Ireland. Al-
though Strongbow had submitted to him in all things, the King
preferred to leave his own man, Hugh de Lacy, as Justiciar and Vice-
gerent. According to Gerald of Wales, Hugh, who had come over to
Ireland with Henry, was a small, swarthy, hairy, ill-made but mus-
cular man, with a flat nose, small, black, sunken eyes, and a disfigur-
ing scar, caused by some accidental burn, running down his right
cheek to the chin. Henry granted him the erstwhile Kingdom of
Meath and appointed him to rule Ireland in his name when he left
the country on April 17, i I7Z.
Tiernan O'Rourke, of course, had long held possession of most
of Meath, and as soon as Henry and his army were out of the way he
challenged Hugh de Lacy's claim to his kingdom. Tiernan was de-
feated in battle, his head was severed from his body and stuck up on
a gate of Dublin, and his body was hung by the heels from a gibbet.
With his rival thus disposed of, Hugh de Lacy settled down to gov-
32 "5-
erning the parts of Ireland under his control. He built castles and es"
tablished peace and order. He won the good will of the Irish by pro*
tecting them scrupulously in the possession of their lands against the
rapacity of the Anglo-Normans, and he put himself on a fine footing
among them by marrying, in 1 1 8 i, the daughter of Rory O'Connor,
titular High King of Ireland and effectively King of Connaught.
The death of Strongbow of an ulcer of the leg in 1 176 left Hugh
supreme in Ireland. Henry suspected that his policy of conciliation
and his friendly relations with the Irish princes were an indication
that he intended to set himself up as king in his own name. He re-
called Hugh to England several times for accountings, but the Vice-
gerent always justified himself and was continued in office^
^Partly in order to remind Hugh de Lacy of his subordinate posi**
tion and partly to give his youngest son experience in handling men
and affairs, Henry sent John, in the spring of 1185, to the land of
which he had been declared Lord at the council at Oxford in 1 177.
To prepare the way for him, Henry had, during the preceding atP
tumn, sent over to Ireland his trusted official and former chaplain,
John Comyn, whose election as Archbishop of Dublin he had en-
gineered in 1 1 8 1 . Thus an archbishop who had never visited his see
was sent as precursor to a lord who had never seen his lands.
John sailed from Milford Haven on the Wednesday in Easter
Week, April 24, 1185, with an imposing fleet of sixty ships, in
which there were three hundred knights and two or three thousand
horsemen and foot soldiers. He landed at Waterford at noon the next
day and was welcomed by the Archbishop of Dublin, the Norman
and English lords who held land in Ireland, and some of the Irish
themselves. These last were well disposed towards the English, and
they greeted John with great gladness as their lord and offered him the
kiss of peace. The sportive young Normans by whom John was SUP
rounded hooted at die Irishmen in derision and pulled their beards,
which after the custom of the country they wore long. The offended
John, Lord of Ireland 3 3
Irishmen withdrew in mortification and went to the Kings of Lim-
erick, Cork, and Connaught to describe their reception by the King's
son. These three, who had been ready to come to John and do horn'
age to him, took second thought, formed an alliance, and swore to
defend their ancient liberties.
From Waterford, John and his company went to Dublin, and
tHere he completed the alienation of the Irish and of the colonists es"
tablished by his father. He took away their lands and reapportioned
them among his unworthy companions; he installed as governors of
the castles along the coast men unfit for the task; and he gave no heed
to the counsels of the old and experienced men of the country /He
was accompanied by Ranulf de Glanville, Justiciar of England and
one of the greatest lawyers of his age, but John did not make use of
his wisdom and experience in organizing the strong central govern"
ment the country badly needed.
John's favorites were the young Normans of his entourage, and he
seemed to consider Ireland a rich prize to be divided among them.
They could not live without the wine on which they had been
brought up; they refused to go inland; and they insisted always on
remaining close to John. Gerald of Wales describes them as boasters,
liars, and lechers, filled with haughty pride and adroit at avoiding any
risks. The little good that was done was done by the English who
accompanied John; they at least were not afraid to fight.
Castles were built at Tibragny, Lismore, and Ardfinnan, to serve
as garrisons for John's forces, and from them they plundered Mun"
ster. The land was thrown into confusion and terror. The governors
that John appointed were concerned only with collecting as much
money as possible, and they made little pretense of enforcing law and
order. The Irish, plundered and oppressed, turned against their gov
ernors and roamed the land, burning, slaying, and stealing, while the
English clung close to the castles on the coast, where there was plenty
of wine and women.
34 II 5-
The King of Limerick inflicted a crushing defeat on John's forces
when they started out from their castle at Ardfinnan to plunder
Thomond. Added to these heavy losses were the desertions of John's
soldiers, who went over to the Irish in large numbers because John
withheld their pay. This was probably the first time in his life that
he had had a large sum of money at his disposal, and he saw no reason
to spend it on his soldiers' pay when much more pleasant uses could
be found for it. What was intended by Henry as the pay of the ex-
pedition was diverted into John's private purse, with the result that
the army dwindled away.
News of his son's misconduct and defeat of course reached Henry,
and in the autumn he ordered him to return to England. John had
complained to his father that Hugh de Lacy would not permit the
Irish to pay tribute, and Henry accordingly ordered him replaced as
Vicegerent by John de Courcy, who had conquered Ulster. After
placing his favorites in positions of power as governors and judges,
John returned ignominiously on December 17, 1185 from his first
position of trust and responsibility.
This was John's first recorded appearance in public life, and a
sorry mess he made of it. He had thrown the land he was supposed
to govern into a state of anarchy and had undone all the good work of
his father and his father's lieutenants; he had been shamefully de-
feated in battle; he had shown himself an incompetent judge of men,
guided only by foolish favoritism and deaf to the advice of experi-
enced counsellors; he had appropriated to himself the money that
had been entrusted to him for the maintenance of his army; he had
exhibited an utter lack of responsibility, and he had treated as a pleas-
ure junket his first opportunity to show his mettle and prove himself
worthy of his father's trust.
CHAPTER IIJ
JOHN, MY HEART"
oft 1186-1189 ft*
|IN SPITE of the failure of John's first mission to Ireland,
|j Henry determined to send him there again, perhaps in order to
frlgive him a chance to redeem himself and perhaps also because
Henry was willfully blind to the faults of his youngest son. Hugh de
Lacy had been treacherously murdered by the Irish on July z$,
1 1 86. According to the Annals of the Four Masters, he had been
building a castle at Durrow, using the venerable stones of the ruined
Columban Abbey as building material, and had gone out to see what
progress had been made. As he bent over the masonry, "one of the
sons of Teffia, a youth named Gilla'gan-inathar O*Meyey, ap"
proached him and with an axe severed his head from his body/ 3
Henry planned to send John back to Ireland to take possession of
Hugh's extensive holdings.
While John was waiting for a favorable wind, his father received
news of the death of his rebel son Geoffrey, who had gone to Paris,
36 [n86-
declared himself the man of the King of France, and defied his fa-
ther. He had died suddenly of a fever on August 19, and his death
raised issues more pressing than the disposition of some lands on the
outer fringe of Henry's empire.
In the meantime, Henry had sent envoys to the new Pope, Ur-
ban III, who had been elected on November 21, 1185. From him
the envoys obtained many concessions that they had not been able to
get from his predecessor, Lucius III. Among these favors was a bull
authorizing the crowning of one of Henry's sons as King of Ireland.
The Pope sent Hugh of Nunant, whom he made Legate to Ireland,
and Cardinal Octavian to England, bearing a crown of peacock feath-
ers embroidered with gold, with which to crown John. They landed
at Dover shortly after the Christmas of 1 186, which John had kept
with his father at Guildford, and John and the Archbishop of Dublin
met them.
Henry had other and more important things to attend to, and he
had the crowning, which would have had an ironic flavor in any case,
put off. Instead, after sending John ahead of him, he took the two
legates with him to Normandy, to lend their weight to a conference
with his enemy, Philip of France, who had succeeded his father,
Louis VII, in 1 180. The differences between them were too great
to be composed by peaceful means, and the conference was broken
off without any hope of peace or agreement.
In preparation for the inevitable conflict, Henry divided his army
into four parts. One part he put under the command of Richard; the
second, under John; the third, under William de Mandeville, Earl
of Essex, and the fourth, under Geoffrey, his chancellor and bastard
son. This Geoffrey, the bastard son, is not to be confused with Hen-
ry's legitimate son of the same name. It seems to have been a com-
mon practice at this time to give the same name to both a legitimate
child and a bastard. John, for instance, had two daughters named
Joan, one legitimate and one illegitimate, and William the Lion,
John, My Heart 3 7
King of Scots, had similarly two daughters named Margaret and
two named Isabella. This must have led to a great deal of confusion
at the time and still perplexes the reader today.
Philip besieged Richard and John at Chateauroux, seventy miles
south of Orleans, in June 1 1 87, and Henry came with a large force
to relieve them. Philip raised the siege, and both armies prepared for
a pitched battle. Through the intervention of the Pope and of the
higher clergy of both countries, who were appalled at the prospect of
open warfare between the two most powerful rulers of Western Eu"
rope, a two-year truce was arranged on June 23, 1 187.
During this uneasy peace, Henry proposed a fresh settlement in
a letter to Philip. Let John marry Alice, Philip's sister, he said, and
Henry would then give John Aquitaine, Anjou, and all his other
lands in France except Normandy, which must remain united with
the English crown and would therefore be part of Richard's inher*
itance. Philip promptly showed this letter to Richard. Alice, whom
Henry was now proposing to marry to John, had been betrothed to
Richard for the last twenty years, but she was as nothing compared
to his duchy of Aquitaine. This evidence that his father intended to
take away from him the dearest part of his inheritance filled Richard
with rage. He immediately allied himself with Philip, who, like his
father, Louis, had always found Henry's sons his most potent weapon
against their father. Many of Henry's barons likewise deserted him
and, following Richard's example, went over to Philip.
Philip and Richard together, in the spring of 1 189, made a hos-
tile incursion into Henry's French territories, and war was again im-
minent. The papal legate, Cardinal John of Anagni, arranged for
another conference between the two kings. They met at La Ferte-
Bernard on June 4, when Philip made a fresh set of demands. The
first one was that his sister Alice, who was betrothed to Richard and
who had, according to the custom of the time, been living in Henry's
household since her betrothal, be finally married to Richard. Richard
3 8 [u86-
had never shown the slightest interest in her or any desire to marry
her, and a sinister rumor had steadily been gaining ground to the ef-
feet that Henry had made her his mistress and even had had several
children by her. Richard eventually returned the unfortunate lady to
her brother in 1 191, and some six years later she was at last married
to the Count of Ponthieu.
Philip also demanded that Henry's nobles should swear fealty to
Richard as Henry's acknowledged heir and that John should set out
for the Holy Land. This last condition sprang not so much from
Philip's concern for the welfare of John's soul as from a desire to get
him out of the way so that Richard might be undisputed heir to
Henry. Richard joined in this demand and swore that he himself
would not go to the Holy Land, as he had vowed to do in Novem-
her 1 1 87, unless John went with him.
Henry replied that he would never assent to such conditions, thus
showing that Richard's fears were in some measure justified, and pro-
posed instead that Alice be married to John. This of course con-
finned Richard's suspicions, and Philip would not agree to the pro-
posal. Henry retired to Le Mans, the capital city of his paternal
inheritance of Maine, in desperate straits. Brittany, Anjou, and Aqui-
taine were all rising in rebellion against him. His barons were desert-
ing him; even his soldiers, now that his treasury was empty, looked
for better pay elsewhere.
Sometime during these desperate days John, as a last and crowning
piece of treachery, went over to Philip's side, hoping to gain more
from his victorious brother than from his defeated father.
Richard and Philip captured Le Mans on June 12, and Henry
was forced to flee with only seven hundred knights remaining of his
army. Henry had ordered one of the suburbs of Le Mans to be
fired, and a sudden change of wind carried the flames to the city it-
self. When he reached a hill about two miles from the city, he
-i i Sg7 John, My Heart 3 9
stopped and looked back on the burning town and gave way to wild
despair.
"O God/* he cried, "since You have today, to heap up confusion
on me and increase my shame, so vilely taken from me the city I
loved most on earth, in which I was born and reared, where my fa-
ther is buried, and where the body of St. Julian lies hidden, I shall
certainly pay You back as best I can, by taking away from You that
part of me that You love best, my soul. 3 *
He fled to Chinon and took refuge there. On June 30 his ene-
mies appeared before Tours, and on the same day he was stricken
with fever. He retreated to Saumur, and on July 3 Tours capitu-
lated.
Richard and Philip summoned the defeated King, whose cause
was now hopelessly lost, to meet them at Columbieres, near Tours,
on July 4. Henry, so racked with fever that he could scarcely sit his
horse, came to hear their demands. Philip was filled with pity at the
sight of his defeated enemy in such great pain. He called for a man-
tle to be folded and placed on the ground, so that his adversary might
sit on it, but Henry refused it. As the Kings conferred, a crash of
thunder came from the cloudless sky and lightning struck among the
host. They fell back in alarm, and when they resumed their confer-
ence a second clap of thunder rent the still summer air. Henry was
now in such mortal pain that his followers had to hold him on his
horse as he listened to Philip's demands. He acceded to them all.
Henry placed himself wholly under the control and at the will
of the King of France and did homage to him for all his French pos-
sessions. Alice, Philip's sister, was taken from the charge of the Eng-
lish King. Richard was to receive the oath of fealty from his father's
subjects in both England and France as the acknowledged heir.
Henry agreed to pay Philip twenty thousand marks of silver, and all
his barons were to swear that if he failed to make the payment they
[n86-
would go over to Philip and Richard and help them to the best of
their ability. As pledges of the King's good faith, Le Mans, Tours,
and a number of castles were to be held by Philip and Richard till
Henry had fulfilled all the conditions.
Henry gave Richard the kiss of peace when these humiliating
terms had been agreed to, but as he drew back he whispered fiercely:
"May God grant me not to die till I have revenged myself worthily
on you!"
Henry made only one request: that the names of those who had
deserted him and gone over to Philip and Richard be written down
and given him. He had himself carried back to Chinon, and there
that evening the chancellor Geoffrey, his bastard son, who had been
faithful to him through all his defeat and humiliation, began to read
the list of traitors. The first name was that of John.
"Can it be true/' cried Henry, sitting up in his agony, "that John,
my heart, whom I have loved more than all my other sons, has for"
saken me?
"Read no more/' he said, and turned his face to the wall. "Now
let all the rest go as it will; I care no more for myself or for the
world/'
He died on July 6, 1 189, crying all the while: "Shame, shame
on a vanquished king!" He who had always traveled with two or
three archbishops and five or six bishops in his train died without
ghostly counsel. His followers plundered him of his remaining treas"
ure and left his body lying naked. A page boy covered it with his
own tattered summer cloak, which reached scarcely to the knees of
the corpse. Thus Henry Court Mantle was found by Geoffrey, Wil-
liam Marshal, and a few faithful servants, who prepared the body for
burial. Henry was dressed in his royal robes, with a golden crown
on his head, gloves on his rough red hands, a golden ring on his fin"
ger, his scepter in his hand, and slippers of cloth"of"gold and spurs
on his feet.
John, My Heart 4 1
As the body lay with its face uncovered, awaiting burial in the
Church of the Nuns at Fontevrault, Richard came to kneel beside
the father he had destroyed. At his approach, blood ran from the
nostrils of the dead king and continued to flow while Richard knelt
before the altar for the space of a Pater Noster. From this men knew
that Richard by his treachery had in truth murdered his father.
CHAPTER IV
THE STRUGGLE WITH
LONGCHAMP
oft 1189-1192
|\ THEN Eleanor in England received the news of the
H\ / death of her husband, she set herself up in the state
\3fV that Henry had denied her since her part in the rebel-
lion of 1 173 and made a queenly progress through the country. She
ordered that all captives should be released from prison, since, says
Roger of Hoveden, "in her own person she had learned by experi-
ence that confinement is distasteful to mankind and that it is a most
delightful refreshment to the spirits to be liberated therefrom."
One of Richard's first acts was to dismiss from his service all those
who had deserted his father and come over to him, while he re-
tained and showed great favor to those who had been faithful to
Henry. He made one exception: he welcomed his brother John and
took him back to England with him on August iz, 1189. After
they landed, Richard confirmed John's title to the county of Mor-
tain, the county of Nottingham, and the castle of Marlborough,
which his father had given him in 1 174. In addition he gave him
-1192] The Struggle with Longchamp 4 3
the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Derby, and Lancaster, and the
Earldom of Cornwall, which had reverted to the Crown in 1175
upon the death of Reginald; the castle of Ludgershall; the honors of
Wallingford, TickhilL Eye, and Bolsover and The Peak, the high
tableland in the northern part of Derbyshire. Finally, Richard gave
him the Earldom of Gloucester and the heiress Hadwisa, to whom
John had been betrothed in 1 176.
John and Hadwisa were married at John's castle of Marlborough
on August 29. Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, forbade the
marriage because John and Hadwisa were second cousins. John dis-
regarded the prohibition, however, and lodged an appeal to Rome.
While the appeal was pending, Baldwin laid John's lands under in-
terdict, but the Papal Legate lifted the sentence in November.
Richard was hallowed and crowned King of England by Bald-
win in Westminster Abbey on Sunday, September 3, 1189. Roger
of Hoveden describes in minute detail the ceremony, which became
the prototype and model for all English coronations since then. In
the procession into the Abbey, John walked between David, Earl
of Huntingdon, the brother of the King of Scotland, and Robert,
Earl of Leicester. Each of the three carried a golden sword from the
King's treasury, with a scabbard worked all over with gold. After
Richard had been anointed and crowned, the Bishops of Durham
and Bath led him to his throne, preceded by John and his two com-
panions, bearing their swords of gold. Mass was celebrated, after
which the procession left the Abbey in the same order in which it
had entered.
The new King was eager to set out on the Crusade, and his first
concern was to raise money for that purpose. As soon as he was
crowned and had received the oaths of homage and fealty from all
his bishops and barons, he put up for sale everything he had. "If I
could find a buyer," he declared, "I would sell London itself/'
Bishop Hugh Pudsey of Durham> who built the wondrous Galilee
44
Porch of that Cathedral, bought the manor of Sedbergh for six hun-
dred marks on September 28. John was one of the witnesses to the
charter confirming the sale.
With John's marriage and Richard's coronation out of the way,
the new King showed his faith in his brother by sending him at the
head of an expedition into Wales. Rhys ap Gryffud, Prince of South
Wales, had rebelled a number of times against the authority of
Henry II, and when he learned that the King was dead he had broken
into a fresh revolt. He seized the castles of Llanstephan and Lang-
harne and ravaged Penfro, Rhos, and Gower. As soon as he had
landed in England, Richard, with characteristic impetuosity, wanted
to go at once and subdue Rhys, but his counsellors persuaded him
that the revolt was of no great importance and could be attended to
after his crowning.
In October, therefore, Richard sent John into Wales with an army
to subdue the rebels and receive the oaths of fealty of the Welsh
princes. They came to him at Worcester and made a treaty of peace
with him, and when Rhys found that none of the other Welsh lead"
ers supported him he yielded without a battle. Under the safe con-
duct of John, he went to Oxford to render homage to Richard. Prob-
ably because he was too busy with his preparations for the Crusade,
Richard declined to come to meet him, and Rhys went back to
Wales in great indignation. He did not, however, attempt to break
the peace again.
In thanksgiving for his coronation and, no doubt, to beg for the
Martyr's prayers for his Crusade, the King made a pilgrimage to the
tomb of one of the greatest of the English saints. He kept the feast of
St. Edmund at the Saint's shrine at Bury St. Edmunds and stayed at
the great abbey from the 1 8th through the zoth of November.
With Wales now secure, Richard next turned his attention to
Scotland. He invited William the Lion, King of the Scots, to meet
him at Canterbury, and there, on December 5, they concluded a
-i 192] The Struggle with Longchamp 4 5
treaty that brought peace to the two countries for a century to come.
The principle article of the treaty was the renunciation by the King
of England of any claim to homage and allegiance for the Kingdom
of Scotland and his consequent recognition of the King of the Scots
as an independent monarch rather than a vassal holding his kingdom
as a fief of the King of England. In return, William paid Richard ten
thousand marks. This treaty, then, had the two-fold effect of secur*
ing peace with Richard's northern neighbor and of providing a large
sum for his treasury. John accompanied his brother to Canterbury
and signed the treaty as a witness.
Immediately before leaving Canterbury for Dover, Richard con-
firmed his gifts of land to John and added to them the county of
Devon. This gave John complete control of the whole West of
England,
Richard had now disposed of most of his affairs in England and
had made the Welsh and Scottish borders safe. On December n,
accordingly, he sailed from Dover to Calais to complete arrange*
ments for his continental territories. He summoned a final council
in February 1190 to provide for the governing of England during
his absence in the Holy Land. Queen Eleanor, John, Baldwin,
Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey, the King's bastard half*
brother, whom he had nominated Archbishop of York, and the
Bishops of Norwich, Durham, Winchester, Bath, Ely, Salisbury,
and Coventry crossed over from England and met Richard in Nor-
mandy. At this council the King appointed William Longchamp,
Bishop of Ely, to be Chief Justiciar, an office for which, according to
Richard of Devizes, Longchamp paid four thousand pounds. In or*
der that the administration of his trusted and loyal servant Long*
champ might not be hampered by the machinations of John, Richard
made his brother swear that he would not go back to England for the
next three years without his permission. At the intercession of Queen
Eleanor, however, Richard released John from his oath.
46
William Longchamp, to whom the King thus entrusted the gov-
erning of England, had served as Richard's chancellor in Aquitaine.
His grandfather was said to have been a runaway French serf. When
Richard succeeded to the throne, he made William his chancellor
and nominated him Bishop of Ely. Longchamp was consecrated on
December 31, 1189 and enthroned at Ely on January 6, 1190.
After Richard made him Chief Justiciar, he prevailed upon Pope
Clement III to appoint him Legate to England in the place of Arch-
bishop Baldwin, who accompanied Richard on the Crusade.
As delegate of both Pope and King, Longchamp was armed with
supreme power in Church and State in England. With the arrogance
sometimes displayed by men who rise to positions of power through
their own abilities rather than through birth and training, Longchamp,
when he returned to England, set himself up in royal state and refused
to take counsel with any of the leading men of the kingdom. He trav-
eled about with such a vast retinue of men, horses, hounds, and
hawks that a house where he spent a single night was impoverished
for years to come. He confiscated lands and other possessions and di-
vided them among his relations and retainers or kept them to pay the
heavy expenses his way of living entailed. The sons of the nobles
acted as his household servants, serving him on bended knee with
downcast eyes, which outraged the English. Longchamp spoke no
English, despised the English people, and made no attempt to hide
his contempt from them. He set up his household at Oxford and sur-
rounded himself with Normans and Flemings. "He moved pom-
pously along/* wrote Hugh of Nunant, Bishop of Coventry, "with a
sneer in his nostrils, a grin on his features, derision in his eyes, and
superciliousness on his brow/*
His heavy exactions, his overbearing conduct, his unscrupulous
confiscation of the property of others, and his arrogant conduct to-
ward the leading men of the kingdom aroused a storm of resentment
among the people and barons alike. John was quick to seize on this
The Struggle with Longchamp 47
popular feeling and use it to his own advantage. His primary ambi"
tion was to be acknowledged heir to the throne. Richard had not
done this, and John had grounds for believing that his brother either
had named or intended to name the young Arthur, the posthumous
son of their brother Geoffrey, as his heir. John began to organize the
discontent against Longchamp and to set himself up as the champion
and leader of the oppressed nation.
Richard formally set out on the Crusade at the end of June 1 1 90,
and he was pursued along the way by messengers from each of the
two opposed parties, telling of the troubles that were arising in Eng-
land. At Messina in Sicily, in February 1 191, upon receiving com"
plaints from all the principal men of the kingdom concerning Long"
champ's highhanded conduct, Richard determined to curb the power
of his chancellor. He sent Walter of Coutances to England with let"
ters to Longchamp ordering him in all business of the kingdom to
have him, together with William Marshal, Geoffrey FitzPeter, Wil"
liam Bruyere, and Hugh Bardolph, one of the Barons of the Ex"
chequer, as his associates and witnesses. When he arrived in England,
however, the emissary was so intimidated by Longchamp's disregard
for the orders and instructions of his master and by his refusal to allow
anyone else to share in the administration that he was afraid to pre*
sent his letters to him and saved them for another occasion.
In the meantime, John had come into open conflict with Long-
champ. Gerard de Camville, an adherent of John, was warder of
Lincoln Castle and sheriff of the county, offices he had acquired
through his wife, Nicholaa de Haia, in whose family they were hered"
itary. Richard, before his departure, had given Gerard a charter con"
firming his title. Longchamp, with customary highhandedness, nev
ertheless attempted to expel Gerard from Lincoln Castle and give his
offices to one of his favorites, William de Stuteville. Gerard, how-
ever, armed both with his right and with the King's charter, refused
to surrender the castle, and Longchamp laid siege to it.
48
When John learned of this, he started to the assistance of his parti-
san. The garrisons of the royal castles of Nottingham and Tickhill
surrendered to him, and John sent word to Longchamp that if he did
not lift the siege of Lincoln immediately "he would visit him with a
rod of iron." Longchamp capitulated and broke up the siege, recog-
nizing that John had the superior force on his side. John's triumph
was not complete, however, for Walter of Coutances and William
Marshal seem to have told him of their mission and powers and ad-
vised him to submit to the arbitration of the leading men of the
kingdom.
John was content for the time being with having checked Long-
champ and did not want to push the matter till he was more sure of
his ground. He accordingly met Longchamp at Winchester on July
28, 1191, and an agreement was drawn up between them. John
gave up the castles of Nottingham and Tickhill to be held in trust
for the King by William Marshal and William of Wendenat, re-
spectively, with the provision that if Longchamp were guilty of any
excesses against John and refused to make amends, the castles should
be returned to John. A number of other castles that seem to have
been subjects for dispute between John and the Chief Justiciar were
also given into the custody of various bishops to be held in trust for
the King, thus removing them from the grasp of both John and Long-
champ. Gerard de Camville was reinstated as Sheriff of Lincoln but
was to stand his trial in the King's court, on what charge it was not
said.
These provisions restored the conditions existing before the con-
flict, and neither John nor Longchamp gained anything by them.
The next article of the agreement, however, was a direct slap at
Longchamp and showed to what lengths he had abused his power. It
was agreed that no bishop, baron, or freeholder should be deprived
of his lands or chattels on the mere order of a justice or deputy of the
The Struggle with Longchamp 49
King, but only by judgment of the King's court, according to the
lawful customs of the realm, or by a direct order of the King himself.
The next conflict between John and Longchamp centered in
Geoffrey, John's bastard half-brother. Geoffrey was born in Eng-
land, presumably of an English mother, about 1153, and he was
the only one of Henry's sons who might be regarded as English by
birth and training. Shortly after Henry became King he acknowl-
edged Geoffrey as his son and had him brought up with Eleanor's
children. He was intended for the Church while he was very young
and was made a deacon when he was still a boy. He served his father
faithfully through the great revolt of 1173, and in that year, when
Geoffrey was about twenty, Henry had him elected Bishop of Lin-
coln. The Pope, in 1175, dispensed him from the impediments of
being under the canonical age and of illegitimate birth, and the chap-
ter of Lincoln thereupon received him in solemn procession. How-
ever, with characteristic thoroughness, Henry determined that if his
son was going to be a bishop he should be a good bishop, and he sent
him to Tours to study for several years.
Geoffrey was back in England by the Christmas of 1178, and
for three more years he continued to receive the revenues and ad-
minister the temporal affairs of his see in an efficient and capable way,
while he was still only a deacon. By 1 1 8 1 the diocese of Lincoln
had been without a bishop for fifteen years, and Pope Alexander III
accordingly ordered the Archbishop of Canterbury to see to it that
someone, either the bishop-elect or another, was consecrated to that
see immediately. Geoffrey's long delay cannot be attributed to a cyn-
ical desire to eat his cake and have it too. Although he was no saint
he led a good life, and his worst faults were the stubbornness and un-
manageable temper common to Henry II and all his sons. Geoffrey
seems truly to have doubted his worthiness for the episcopal office,
and his delay may be interpreted as proceeding from the struggle be*
So [1189-
tween his own honest feelings and the desire of his father to see his
most trustworthy son well provided for.
The Pope's letter made a decision imperative, and Geoffrey re--
signed the bishopric, which was given to Walter of Coutances.
Henry, who had learned to trust both his son's character and his
abilities as an administrator, made him his chancellor. Geoffrey served
his father faithfully till the day of Henry's death. Richard, as soon as
he became King, nominated him to the Archbishopric of York in ac"
cordance with Henry's Jast wishes, and he was duly elected by the
chapter of York on August i o, 1189.
Immediately everything went wrong. A minority of the chapter of
York declared that Geoffrey's election was invalid because the Dean,
Hubert Walter, and Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, a suffragan
of York, were not present. They appealed the matter to the Pope,
Geoffrey seems again to have been beset by scruples concerning his
worthiness. However, he took the first step by being ordained priest
on September 23 by one of his suffragans, the Bishop of Whithern.
This brought an immediate protest from Baldwin, Archbishop of
Canterbury, who advanced the claim that the right of ordaining and
consecrating the Archbishop of York belonged to him, and he also
appealed to the Pope.
In November Richard sent Geoffrey north to the River Tweed to
meet William the Lion and conduct him to Canterbury. On his way,
Geoffrey stopped at York, and there the chapter asked him to install
some new canons who had been appointed by Richard while the see
was vacant, Geoffrey declared that these nominations were not ef-
fective without his consent as archbishop-elect, and he refused to in"
stall the canons till after his election should have been confirmed by
the Pope. By doing this he incurred the wrath of the King and of all
the members of the chapter. When he arrived at Canterbury he
found everyone against him: Richard, the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, the Dean and chapter of York, and the Bishop of Durham.
-11927 The Struggle with Longchamp 51
Geoffrey's humility was now replaced by stubbornness. Although
Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, and Hubert Walter, now Bishop
of Salisbury but Dean of York at the time of Geoffrey's election, ap-
peared at Canterbury before the Papal Legate, Cardinal John of
Anagni, to protest that Geoffrey's election was invalid because they
had not been present, and although the Treasurer and the new Dean
of the chapter of York also appeared and protested that he was not
canonically elected and was a murderer, bom in adultery, and the
son of a harlot, Geoffrey nevertheless induced the Legate to confirm
his election, and he bought back his brother's favor by promising him
three thousand pounds for his expenses on the Crusade.
Geoffrey found it impossible to raise the money, and he came to
Richard in Normandy in March 1 190 with empty hands, Richard,
who placed the raising of money for the Crusade above all other
considerations, was not pleased when Geoffrey thus failed him. He
sent messengers to the Pope to try to persuade him not to confirm
Geoffrey's election, and he made Geoffrey swear not to go to England
for the next three years. Geoffrey stubbornly refused to accept his
brother's nullification of his previous consent and followed him to
V6zelay, where the Kings of England and France were to meet for a
formal setting out on the Crusade. At last Geoffrey succeeded in in*
fluencing Richard to restore his promised office by paying him eight
hundred marks on the spot and promising him twelve hundred marks
as soon as he could raise the money.
From Vezelay Geoffrey went to Tours, where he stayed for more
than a year, waiting for a mandate for his consecration from the
Pope. After the agreement at V&zelay Richard apparently did not
countermand his request made to the Pope in March that he hinder
Geoffrey's consecration, for the Pope made no move till the spring of
1191. In the meantime, in February of that year, Richard had re-
ceived at Messina the reports of the conflict between John and Long-
champ and of Longchamp's arrogant behavior, and it occurred to
him that the presence in England of the Archbishop of York, during
the absence of the Archbishop of Canterbury on the Crusade, might
act as a check on both the Chief Justiciar and John. Queen Eleanor
arrived at Messina on March 30, bringing with her Richard's future
wife, Berengaria of Navarre. On her way back to England, accom-
panied by Walter of Coutances, now Archbishop of Rouen, the in"
domitable Eleanor stopped in Rome for an interview with the new
Pope, Celestine III, who had been elected on March 30, concern-
ing the affairs of Geoffrey. In Richard's name she asked him to con-
firm the election and either to consecrate Geoffrey himself or to order
someone else to do so. In May the Pope accordingly sent a mandate
to the Archbishop of Tours, authorizing him to consecrate Geoffrey,
and the ceremony was performed on August 18.
Geoffrey now asserted that at Vezelay Richard had released him
from his oath not to go back to England, and indeed it does not seem
reasonable that Richard would have taken such steps to secure Geof-
keys consecration unless he intended that his brother should return
to England and exercise his office there. When Geoffrey reached
Witsand, in Flanders, messengers from Longchamp met him and
forbade him to come to England. He ignored this order and crossed
over to Dover on September 14. Knowing that the Chief Justiciar's
men would be watching for him, he disguised himself before he left
the ship. When he landed, he mounted a swift horse and rode to St.
Michael's Priory near the town. He reached the sanctuary about
noon, as Mass was being celebrated. He entered the church just
when the Epistle was being read and heard St. Paul's words: "He
that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be/' from
which he derived much comfort.
Geoffrey claimed sanctuary, and Longchamp's servants sur-
rounded the priory. After five days of blockade, the Justiciar's men
violated the sanctuary, entered the church just after Mass had been
celebrated, and dragged the Archbishop, still in his vestments,
-i 192] The Struggle with Longchamp 5 3
through the streets and lanes to Dover Castle. There they delivered
him to Matthew of Clare, the governor of the castle, whose wife was
Longchamp's sister. Matthew immediately put him in prison in the
Castle.
John heard of this outrage through his counsellor, Hugh of
Nunant, Bishop of Coventry, and he asked Longchamp if it had
been done at his order. The Justiciar admitted that it had. John or"
dered that Geoffrey should be released, and the Archbishop came to
London to complain to John, the bishops, and the barons of the dis-
graceful way in which he had been treated. John then ordered that
Longchamp should stand his trial in the King's Court, but the
Justiciar, although not refusing to appear before the court, put off his
appearance from day to day.
In the meantime a great wave of indignation was mounting against
Longchamp. Geoffrey seems to have been popular in England. The
men whom Richard had left in positions of trust and power were
those who had remained faithful to Henry during his last struggle,
and they would of course know of Geoffrey's unswerving fidelity to
his father and respect him for it. The barons would resent it that a
lowborn upstart should thus humiliate the son of a king and the
brother of a king. The English people, whom Longchamp heartily
despised, would be enraged that a sneering Norman should treat with
such contempt the most English of the late King's sons. Finally,
bishop and Papal Legate though he was, by violatbg the sacred
rights of sanctuary and by laying violent hands on the highest eccle^
siastical dignitary in the land, Longchamp had outraged the religious
feelings of the whole nation. He was hated throughout the country,
and this piece of highhandedness was the last straw.
John felt that the nation was with him. In consultation with Wai"
ter of Coutances, he summoned the bishops and barons of the realm
to a council near Reading to try the Chief Justiciar, and he ordered
Longchamp to appear before the council. The council assembled,
54
but Longchamp stayed in Windsor Castle and refused to appear.
The bishops pronounced him excommunicate, and the council then
decided, in order to have the greatest possible authority, to move to
London and admit the citizens to their deliberations.
Longchamp got news of this and hastened towards London in
order to enlist the support of the citizens before the members of the
council should reach there. On the road his party encountered John
and the other nobles and their knights. A brisk engagement was
fought, in which John's justiciar, Roger de Planes, was killed, but
Longchamp's party was greatly outnumbered. He and his supporters
fled and took refuge in the Tower of London.
John and nearly all the bishops and nobles of England entered
London on that same evening. On the following day, October i o,
they met with the citizens of London in St, Paul's Churchyard in a
council truly national in composition. Accusations covering all of
Longchamp's misdeeds, which culminated in his treatment of Geof-
frey, were made. In the words of Hugh of Nunant: "He and his rev
ellers had so exhausted the whole kingdom that they did not leave a
man his belt, a woman her necklace, a nobleman his ring, or any
thing of value even to a Jew. He had likewise so utterly emptied the
King's treasury that in all the coffers and bags therein nothing but
the keys could be met with, after the lapse of these two years."
The chief men of the kingdom, who should have been associated
with Longchamp in the government, testified that he had scorned
their advice and had transacted all affairs to suit himself only. Then
Walter of Coutances publicly produced for the first time the letters
Richard had given him at Messina in the preceding February, asso-
ciating him in the government and containing the provision that if
Longchamp should act contrary to the advice of those appointed to
assist and counsel him, he should be deposed and Walter of Cou-
tances made Chief Justiciar.
The whole assembly of bishops, barons, and citizens of London
-i 1927 Tfo Struggle with Longchamp 5 5
thereupon deposed Longchamps as Chief Justiciar and elected Wal-
ter of Coutances in his stead. Walter agreed to do nothing without
the advice and consent of the Barons of the Exchequer and of those
named in Richard's letters as his associates. John, the new Chief
Justiciar, and his associates then granted to the citizens of London
the privileges of a commune, a form of city government new in Eng-
land, whereby the whole citizenry were regarded as one person and
this corporate person made a direct feudal vassal of the king, without
the intermediate jurisdiction of any lord. The citizens of London in
turn took oaths of allegiance to King Richard and his heirs and swore
that if he should die without issue they would receive John as their
king and lord. John had thus achieved his purpose and was recog-
nized by the whole assembly as rightful heir to the throne.
John now appears in a better light than at any time in his subse-
quent career. He acted with sound good sense, and he was careful to
associate himself with the leading men of the realm and to act with
their advice. He knew when he had gone far enough and did not
take advantage of a temporary supremacy to make any demands or
claim any rights to which he did not have at least a reasonable title.
For once, he showed himself astute in gauging the temper of those
about him and willing to abide by their judgment. At the same time,
he had enough enterprise to take the initiative and see that those
things were done that cried out to be done.
That this affair of the deposition of Longchamp was conducted in
such an orderly fashion was eloquent testimony to the great advances
England had made under Henry II. By the rigorous training that
monarch had given them, the whole nation, nobles and people alike,
had learned to respect the law and to comply with the orderly proc-
esses of government. The willful selfishness of the feudal nobles,
each acting despotically in his own domain, had been replaced by a
sense of collective responsibility to the king and to the country.
Geoffrey, the original cause of the disturbance, was enthroned in
56 [1189-
York Minster on All Saints 3 Day, 1191. This was not the great
cathedral that we know today, but an earlier building, of which only
the crypt remains.
The downfall of Longchamp was complete. He immediately sur-
rendered the Tower of London and Windsor Castle to the new Chief
Justiciar and promised to give up all the other castles he held, giving
his brothers and his chamberlain as hostages. He surrendered some
of these castles and then fled to his brother-in4aw at Dover. From
there he attempted to escape to the Continent, disguised as a woman
in a long green gown. Some of the townspeople discovered the ruse
and recognized him. Remembering how, only a month before, Long"
champ had had Geoffrey publicly humiliated before them, they
dragged him through the streets and then shut him up in a dark cel-
lar under guard. All this was reported to John, who forced Long-
champ to surrender all the remaining castles and then ordered him to
be released.
The fallen justiciar crossed over to Flanders on October 29.
There he fell into the hands of some men whom he had injured in
England, and they held him until, in the ominous words of Roger
of Hoveden, "he made satisfaction to them." From there Long-
champ went to Paris, where he paid the Bishop sixty marks to greet
him with a procession. Thence he returned to Normandy, but he
found scant welcome there, for the Archbishop of Rouen, his suc-
cessor in England, had had the sentence of excommunication against
him published throughout Normandy, and wherever he went the
services of the Church were suspended as long as he stayed there.
Longchamp then sent messengers to Pope Celestine III and to the
King, telling them how John and his accomplices had expelled him
from the kingdom. In December the Pope sent a letter to all the bish-
ops of England, ordering them to find out if it were true that John or
anyone else had laid violent hands on Longchamp or had put him in
prison or had in any way changed the "state of the kingdom from the
-U92J The Struggle with Longchamp 57
position in which it was placed by His Serene Highness at his depar-
ture" on the Crusade. If such proved to be the case, the bishops were
instructed to assemble together and with candles lighted and bells
ringing to pronounce the sentence of excommunication against John
and his accomplices.
Under the authority of this letter, Longchamp, styling himself "by
the grace of God Bishop of Ely, Legate of the Apostolic See, and
Chancellor of our lord the King/ 3 wrote to the venerable and great
Hugh of Avalon, Bishop of Lincoln, one of the most saintly men in
England, ordering him to convene the bishops of England and carry
out the Pope's orders. John was to be given a period of grace, till the
next Quinquagesima Sunday, in which to repent. His accomplices,
however, among whom Longchamp named Walter of Coutances,
William Marshal, Geoffrey FitzPeter, William Bruyere, and Hugh
Bardolph, to whom Richard had entrusted the government of the
country in his letters of February 1191, were to be excommuni-
cated immediately.
In addition to these, Longchamp distinctly and especially named
his erstwhile friend, Hugh of Nunant, Bishop of Coventry, to be
publicly denounced. Hugh had written a circular letter describing
Longchamp's misdeeds and downfall, and with malicious glee he had
dwelt upon the spectacle of the fallen justiciar sitting at the seashore
at Dover, dressed in a woman's gown, with a huckster's staff in his
hand and a length of brown cloth, as if for sale, on his arm, and be-
ing embraced by a fisherman, cold and wet from the sea, who sought
warmth in the folds of the Legate's dress and, being thus warmed, dis-
covered his sex. This Bishop, directed the smarting Legate, is "to be
strictly avoided by all, that in the future a sheep so diseased may not
be able to blemish and corrupt the flock of the Lord."
Neither the saintly Hugh of Avalon nor any other of the bishops
paid any attention to these letters of the Pope and of his Legate. In-
stead of pronouncing the sentence of excommunication on Long"
5 8 f
champ's enemies, the bishops met with the justiciars and deprived
him of his bishopric. The revenues from the now vacant see of Ely,
which in any case would belong to the Crown, they put in the royal
hoard to replace some of the treasures Longchamp had taken from it.
The five justiciars, the bishops, and the barons wrote a joint let-
ter to Richard, reporting Longchamp's offenses and telling how they
had deposed him. Longchamp on his side warned Richard that John
had seized possession of the kingdom and was planning next to seize
the crown itself.
John's position was strong. His possession of the counties of Corn*
wall, Devon, Somerset, Gloucester, and Dorset gave him control of
the West of England, and within his domains he ruled with absolute
authority and kept kingly state. The revenues from these counties
went directly into his own treasury, and he made no accounting of
them to the royal exchequer.
He was not pleased, however, with the disposition of the castles
over which he had quarreled with Longchamp during the preceding
summer. At the same time, he did not dare openly to defy the au-
thority of the new justiciar by seizing the castles of Nottingham and
Tickhill, which Walter of Coutances had put in the custody of
Roger, the Constable of Chester. Roger afforded John an oppor-
tunity to show his discontent when Roger hanged two of the men
whom John had placed in charge of the castles, on the grounds that
they had consented to the surrender of those castles to John during
the past summer. John immediately laid waste all the lands belong-
ing to the Constable of Chester that lay within John's jurisdiction,
and his power was so great that the central government seems to
have raised no question.
Now that Geoffrey had, at the beginning of November, at last
been enthroned as Archbishop of York, he set to work to reduce to
order his chief suffragan, Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, who had
-j 192] The Struggle with Longchamp 5 9
kd the original protest against his election. He could hardly have
chosen a stouter or more wily opponent. Hugh was a grandson of
Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, and hence a second
cousin to Henry II. He was made Bishop of Durham in 1 153 and
thus, as Bishop and Earl'palatine of Durham, had the whole county
under his civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. He was closely allied
with the great families of the North, and during his long tenure of
the see had acquired a considerable fortune. He was a great builder
of churches, and the Galilee of Durham Cathedral is one of the fin*
est monuments to his zeal in that respect. At this time he had had al-
most forty years of experience in administering the affairs of his
diocese.
Geoffrey ordered Hugh to come to York and make his profession
of canonical obedience to him. Hugh refused on the grounds that
he had already done obedience to the former Archbishop, Roger of
Pont4*Evque, and that there was no law compelling him to make a
second such profession. Geoffrey then excommunicated him, but
Hugh paid no attention to the sentence and continued to celebrate
Mass and to cause it to be celebrated in his presence. When he
learned of this defiance, Geoffrey caused the altars at which Hugh
had said Mass to be demolished and the vessels that had been used in
the celebration of Mass in Hugh's presence to be broken.
John incurred his half-brother's wrath by spending Christmas with
Hugh at his manor of Hoveden in Yorkshire. This visit to one of the
most influential men in the North of England shows Johns desire to
win the sympathy and support of the leading men of the kingdom,
but it served only to get him into trouble. Because he had eaten in
the company of the excommunicated Bishop, Geoffrey pronounced
sentence of excommunication against him, too. Hugh found that
Geoffrey had some power in his province, for most men avoided
Hugh's company and refused to speak to him or to eat and drink with
60
him. Hugh then appealed to the Pope, and the Pope decided that the
sentence had been inconsiderately pronounced and without reason-
able cause and therefore nullified it.
Philip meanwhile had returned from the Holy Land with his small
heart bursting with envy and jealousy and spite, leaving Richard in
command of the Christian armies there. Philip set to work with plans
to injure the English King during his absence. He sent messengers to
John in January 1 192, asking him to come to France to confer with
him. He offered John the hand of his sister Alice, whom Richard
had finally and emphatically repudiated by marrying Berengaria of
Navarre, and promised that he would help him gain possession of
both England and Normandy. John was foolish enough to believe all
this and replied that he would come and discuss matters.
Eleanor got wind of the plot and, knowing her youngest son's
devious ways and his fondness for double-dealing, hurried to Eng-
land from Normandy. She found John on the verge of starting for
France. The stout-hearted Queen, the Archbishop of Rouen, and
the other justiciars forbade John to cross to the Continent and threat-
ened to seize all his lands and castles if he did so. Checkmated by all
those in power, John abandoned his plans for the time being.
The new Chief Justiciar and his associates were meanwhile con-
ducting the government of the country in an able manner, and after
the oppressions of Longchamp all men seemed satisfied with the new
justiciars. It was not to John's advantage that the country should be
in a peaceful state; his interests were best advanced amid discord,
when he could play off one side against the other. Seeing no hope of
getting any support from the faithful servants of Richard who were
now in power, and foiled in his design of plotting treachery with
Philip, he accepted from Longchamp an offer of five thousand
pounds if he could succeed in getting the former Chief Justiciar re*
stored to his office. Longchamp had also given much money to
Queen Eleanor and promised to give her still more.
-i jgaj The Struggle with Longchamp 6 i
John sent word to him to return to England. In Lent, 1192,
Longchamp landed at Dover and remained at Dover Castle with his
sister and her husband, but he was afraid to proceed any farther. John
in the meantime tried in every way possible to induce the chief men
of the kingdom to restore Longchamp to his former position, but they
firmly refused. When Walter of Coutances told Eleanor of the ex"
cesses of which Longchamp had been guilty, she ceased to plead his
cause before the justiciars. They bribed John with two thousand
marks from the King's treasury, and he too ceased to champion the
exiled Bishop. In general indignation they sent word to Longchamp
that if he did not leave the country immediately they would cast him
into prison. The former Chief Justiciar returned to the Continent on
Maundy Thursday, April 3, 1192.
This episode showed John that his influence outside his own ter"
ritories was negligible, after all, and that he was not trusted by the
nobles, and he seems to have passed the remainder of the year 1 192
in a peaceful fashion, looking after the administration of his domains.
This peace was interrupted early in 1193 when the news reached
England that Richard, on his way home from the Holy Land, had
been captured by his bitter enemy, Leopold, Duke of Austria.
CHAPTER V
THE RANSOMING OF
RICHARD
1193-1199
PHE THIRD CRUSADE had not been a
great success. The Christian leaders spent more time in quar*-
reling among themselves than in fighting the Saracens, and
against this divided host the infidels had presented an army firmly
united in fanatical faith, ably led by their great ruler, Saladin, and
accustomed to the climate, the country, and the style of warfare best
suited to those conditions.
Richard, indeed, had covered himself with dazzling glory. His
daring feats, his reckless heroism, his openhanded generosity, his
genius as a military tactician, and his embodiment of all the manly
and knightly virtues had gained him the reputation of being the very
ideal of Christian chivalry. Nevertheless, when a three years' truce
was drawn up between Richard and Saladin, the Christians were not
much nearer regaining the Holy Sepulchre than they had been at the
start of the Crusade. They were worn out by disease, climate, and
-i rp97 The Ransoming of Richard 6 3
constant warfare, and their numbers had been greatly reduced by
desertions and by death. Richard had exhausted most of his great
wealth, was constantly ill, and had been receiving a series of dis-
turbing reports about John's designs on the throne and about Phil-
ip's encroachments on his continental possessions.
Richard arranged a truce with Saladin in September 1192, after
he had been in the Holy Land for fifteen months, and started back to
England. Why he did not sail directly for his kingdom, going
through the Pillars of Hercules with the other returning Crusaders,
is not clear; he may have thought that he could go more quickly by
land than by sea. At any rate, he attempted to cross through Ger-
many and was captured near Vienna on December zi by his im-
placable enemy, Leopold, Duke of Austria, whom he had mortally
offended after the capture of Acre. Leopold turned his royal captive
over to the Emperor, Henry VI, shortly after Christmas, on condi-
tion that he should receive half of whatever sums Henry might get
as Richard's ransom.
Philip quickly received the news of Richard's misfortune and sent
messengers to John in England, inviting him to join him in invading
Richard's French territories. Early in 1193 John crossed over to
Normandy, where he was met by the chief men of the duchy. Think-
ing that he was as much disturbed by his brother's plight as they
were, they proposed that John come with them to Alengon to dis-
cuss the measures to be taken to secure Richard's release. John re-
plied that if they would receive him as their lord and swear fealty to
him, he would come to the conference and would defend them
against the French King. The Norman nobles indignantly refused to
renounce their allegiance to Richard.
John nevertheless went to Philip in February and did homage to
him for Normandy and the other lands that Richard held of Philip.
It was said also that John did homage for England as well. Although
he was still married to Hadwisa, he swore to marry Philip's sister Al-
64
ice, and he renounced all claims to the Norman Vexin. Philip in turn
gave him the part of Flanders that was then under French control
and swore to assist him in every way in gaining England and the
other territories belonging to Richard.
This was apparently John's first overt act in his attempt to usurp
the throne. He had been suspected of such a design for some time,
but he had not hitherto been able to find any person of importance
to support his plans. Encouraged now by Philip, he returned to
England with a force of foreign mercenaries. The castles of Walling"
ford and Windsor surrendered to him immediately. Flushed with
this success, he went to London and demanded of the Chief Jus*
ticiar, Walter of Coutances, and the men associated with him that
they turn the kingdom over to him and swear fealty to him. Richard,
he declared, was dead, and he claimed the crown as the lawful heir.
The Chief Justiciar and the barons turned down this claim with
scorn and indignation, and John withdrew to his own lands. He
fortified all his castles and began to attack those belonging to Richard.
Many shiftless and discontented people rallied round him, but he
could not raise enough of a force to offer any serious threat to the
peace of the country. The Chief Justiciar placed strong garrisons at
the seaports to make sure that John received no help from his French
ally, and Philip gave up the intention, if indeed he had ever enter*
tained it, of sending an army to help him. A few French and Flem-
ing adventurers tried to enter the country to enlist in John's forces,
but the Chief Justiciar had them seized and put in chains.
In the meantime, as soon as he had heard of the capture of Rich'
ard, the Chief Justiciar sent the abbots of Boxley and of Roberts-
bridge to Germany to try to find him. After passing through Ger-
many in their search, the abbots found their King in Bavaria, at a
town where he had been brought for the purpose of holding a con-*
ference with the Emperor on Palm Sunday. They reported to Rich"
ard on the state of his kingdom, and he complained bitterly about
-i i)9J The Ransoming of 'Richard 6 5
John's conduct. He did not see in it any danger to liis crown, how-
ever, for, he said: "My brother John is not the man to conquer a
country if there is a single person able to make the slightest resistance
to his attempts/'
The abbots returned to England shortly after Easter and brought
the news that peace had been made between Richard and the Em"
peror. Richard agreed to pay a ransom of a hundred thousand marks
of silver and to provide fifty galleys, fully equipped, and the services
of twenty knights for a year, to help the Emperor in his expedition
against southern Italy and Sicily. These envoys were followed by
messengers from the King himself, asking for ships and for Alan
Trenchemere, the pilot of Richard's own ship. Then Robert of
Turnham, one of the King's household, came to England bringing
with him Richard's armor and accouterments.
Upon receiving all these cheering indications that Richard was in"
deed alive and might soon be back in England, the justiciars decided
to employ sterner measures in dealing with John. They laid siege to
Windsor Castle, and Archbishop Geoffrey, the Sheriff of York, and
Hugh Bardolph, one of the justiciars, fortified Doncaster against him.
Philip meanwhile invaded Normandy. He appeared with his
army before Rouen and ordered the inhabitants to surrender the city
to him, on the grounds that John had done homage to him for Eng-
land and had surrendered all the English territories on that side of
the Channel to him. The stouthearted citizens replied: "See, the
gates are open; enter if you like; no one opposes you." The lily"
livered Philip, however, took second thought and declined to enter,
He burned the twenty-four stone engines with which he had planned
to assault the city, broke his wine casks and poured out the wine, and
retired with his army.
Time was passing, and still Richard's faithful servants in England
had no further word from him as to his return. John was, after all,
recognized as heir to the throne in England, and the justiciars and
66
their associates began to doubt the wisdom of dealing too harshly
with one who might some day be their king. John in the meantime
was predicting that his brother would never return, and the long de-
lay lent some plausibility to his words. Accordingly, the justiciars
arrived at a truce with him to last till All Saints' Day, according to
the terms of which he retained the castles of Nottingham and Tick"
hill, but the castles of Windsor, Wallingford, and The Peak were
given to Queen Eleanor and men appointed by her, to hold in trust
till the expiration of the truce. If Richard had not returned by that
time, it was agreed that these castles were to be returned to John.
Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, was engaged in besieging Tick"
hill at the time the truce was arranged, and it went sorely against the
grain for him to abandon the siege just when he was on the point of
taking the castle. Bishop Hugh was almost seventy at the time, but
his strength and energy were those of a young man.
Richard wrote to his mother and the justiciars on April 1 9, 1 1 93,
informing them that an indissoluble bond of friendship had been
formed between him and the Emperor at the price of seventy thou-
sand marks of silver and urging them to raise the money immediately.
Eleanor and the justiciars at once set about collecting the tremendous
sum. Since money to pay the lord's ransom was one of the three
recognized feudal dues, the consent of the bishops and barons was
not necessary for this extraordinary levy. All men, clerics as well as
lay, were taxed a fourth of the year's income and a fourth of the
value of their movables; each knight's fee was assessed at twenty
shillings; all the gold and silver of the churches was taken, as the
King had specifically commanded; and the religious orders of the
Cistercians and Gilbertines, who theoretically had no wealth, con"
tributed all the year's clip of wool. It is an extraordinary testimony
to Richard's popularity among a people who scarcely knew him,
and to the hold he had secured upon their imaginations and affec-
tions by his heroic deeds in the Holy Land that the whole of England
-i 1 99.7 The Ransoming of Richard 6 7
turned cheerfully to the task of raising a sum so vast as to be almost
beyond the reach of their calculations. Most of the Crusaders had
returned from the East by this time, and one may be sure that
Richard's exploits lost nothing in their telling of them.
The Emperor wrote to the bishops and nobles of England, urging
them in flowery language "to take those steps which are due to the
honor of our most dearly beloved friend, your lord Richard/' This
hypocritical message was delivered by William Longchamp, who
had rejoined his master early in the spring. Longchamp landed at
Ipswich, spent the night at Hitcham, and sent word to Abbot Sam-
son of Bury St. Edmunds that he would like to hear Mass at St. Ed-
mund's shrine. The Abbot ordered that no one was to celebrate Mass
in Longchamp's presence, since he was excommunicated. When
Longchamp arrived at the great abbey the next morning and entered
the church as Mass was being said, the celebrant, who had already
reached the Canon, stood silent till a messenger reported that the
excommunicated prelate had left the church. Longchamp in a con-
siderably chastened frame of mind went to St. Albans and was given
a frigid reception by Queen Eleanor and the justiciars. He declared
that he came to England not as Justiciar, Legate, or Chancellor, but
as a simple bishop bearing a message from the King. After delivering
that message, he left England immediately and returned to Richard.
Negotiations between Richard and the Emperor were continuing,
and by summer they had reached another agreement that Richard
was to pay a hundred thousand marks for his freedom. When news of
this settlement reached Philip he sent word to John that c< he must
take care of himself, for the devil was now let loose." John at once
crossed over to Normandy and joined Philip as his adherent.
Whilst his brother was engaged in his treachery, Richard sent
William Longchamp and William Bruyere to make peace with
Philip. Early in July 1193, a treaty was drawn up between them,
and one of the provisions guaranteed that John should retain the
68
lands his brother had previously given him. When his envoys re-
turned to Richard and reported that they had made peace with Philip,
he sent them back to endeavor to win John over to his rightful
allegiance. They persuaded him to leave Philip's court and return to
Normandy, where he took an oath of fealty to Richard. Richard had
ordered that when John had taken this oath the castles in Normandy
that he had previously given him were to be delivered over to John,
but the keepers of the castles, who knew him and suspected more
treachery on his part, refused to relinquish them to him. John was
full of rage at this insult, merited though it was, and went back to
Philip and renewed his allegiance to him. Philip gave him the castles
of Driencourt and Arches, which according to the treaty were to
have been delivered to the Archbishop of Rouen.
The Emperor's messengers came to London and received the
money for Richard's ransom. They expressed amazement at the pros-
perous appearance of the city and its inhabitants, for the boorish Ger-
mans had supposed that the raising of so large a ransom would leave
the country utterly destitute. Richard summoned his mother, Walter
of Coutances, and many of his nobles to come to him in Germany in
anticipation of his being set free, and in September the Emperor
fixed a date in the following January when he was to be released.
When Philip and John learned that the devil was indeed about to
be let loose, they sent messengers, among whom was Robert of
Nunant, brother of the Bishop of Coventry, to the Emperor, to
make a variety of offers. If he would agree to keep Richard in cap-
tivity till the following Michaelmas, they would each pay him fifty
thousand marks; or they would pay him a thousand marks a month
as long as he kept Richard; or Philip would pay him a hundred
thousand marks and John would pay fifty thousand marks if the Em-
peror would either deliver Richard into their hands or keep him a
full year. These were attractive offers to a man so devoid of scruple
as to lay hands on the person of a Crusader, protected by the laws
-r 1997 'the Ransoming of Richard 6 9
of the Church under penalty of excommunication, and they would
probably have been even more attractive if they had come from men
that might be trusted to live up to them. The Emperor needed time
to consider them, and he postponed Richard's liberation till the fol-
lowing Candlemas, February z, 1194.
On the appointed day, in the presence of his nobles and of Queen
Eleanor, Walter of Coutances, William Longchamp, and the Bishop
of Bath, the Emperor handed over to Richard the letters from Philip
and John and expressed a desire to withdraw from his agreement to
free Richard, in view of the tempting terms he was offered to keep
him captive. The assembly so reproached him for his intended breach
of faith that they prevailed upon him at last to keep his word. He ac-
cordingly delivered Richard into the hands of his mother, after he
had been in captivity for a year and six weeks.
Whilst Richard and his party were making a leisurely return to
England, John sent a cleric of his household, one Adam of St. Ed"
munds, to England with letters to the keepers of his castles, ordering
them to fortify the castles against the arrival of the King. When
Adam reached London he had dinner at the house of Hubert Walter,
the new Archbishop of Canterbury. He had been elected, not with'
out the usual squabble between the bishops and the monks of Can-
terbury, to succeed Baldwin, who had died in the Holy Land. Adam
boasted loudly about his master's wealth and prosperity and about
the intimate friendship between John and the King of France. As
proof of this friendship Adam cited the fact that Philip had given
John the castles of Driencourt and Arches and would have given
him many more if John had had faithful men to keep them for him.
Out of respect for the Archbishop's table, Adam was allowed to
leave unmolested, but on his way back to his lodging the Mayor of
London arrested him, took all his papers away from him, and turned
them over to the Archbishop. On the following day Archbishop
Hubert showed John's treasonable letters to the assembled bishops
70 ["93-
and barons. Since his instructions implied a preparation for civil war,
the council decreed that John should be deprived of all his lands in
England and that his castles should be seized.
On the same day, Archbishop Hubert, Hugh of Avalon, Bishop
of Lincoln, and a number of other bishops and abbots met in the
Chapel of the Sick Monks at Westminster and pronounced sentence
of excommunication against John and all his abettors and advisors in
plotting against the King and the peace of the realm. They also wrote
a letter to the Pope, begging that William Longchamp should be
deprived of his position as Legate in England.
The principal men of the kingdom immediately set to work with
great zeal and laid siege to John's castles. That splendid old warrior,
Hugh Pudsey, raised a large army in Northumberland and York"
shire and resumed the siege of Tickhill, which he had been obliged
to abandon almost a year earlier. David, Earl of Huntingdon and
brother of the King of the Scots, and his brother'in'law, Ranulf
de Blundevill, Earl of Chester, besieged Nottingham Castle. The
Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been appointed Chief Justiciar
when Walter of Coutances went to Germany to join Richard, di'
rected the operations against Marlborough. This last castle, together
with those of Lancaster, which John had entrusted to Theobald FitZ"
Walter, Archbishop Hubert's brother, and of St. Michael's Mount,
in Cornwall, whose keeper died of fright when he heard that Richard
was on his way back to England, surrendered without resistance.
Richard landed at Sandwich on March iz, 1 194, and when the
news of his arrival reached the members of the garrison of Tickhill
they asked leave of Bishop Hugh to send two knights to see if the
King had really returned. The knights reported to their comrades
that the King had indeed returned, whereupon they surrendered the
castle to the Bishop. Nottingham, however, continued to withstand
the siege, and the King in exasperation went there on March 25
with such a multitude of men and such a clangor of trumpets that the
-J ip97 The Ransoming of Richard 7 i
garrison were greatly disturbed. Still they did not believe that the
King had come and continued to resist, thinking that this multitude
and uproar were tricks of their besiegers. Richard camped so close to
the walls of the castle that the archers killed men at his very feet. He
put on his armor and ordered an assault to be made. Although many
men fell on both sides and the King himself slew one man with an
arrow, Richard succeeded only in driving the garrison back into the
castle, taking some defenses that had been thrown up outside the
gates, and burning the outer gates. On this day the Archbishops
Hubert and Geoffrey joined Richard at Nottingham.
Richard, on the next day, had his stone engines put together so
that he might batter the castle into submission. He had gibbets built
near the castle, and from them he hanged some of John's men whom
he had captured the day before.
Hugh Pudsey and those who had been with him at the siege of
Tickhill came to Richard on the z/th, bringing with them the
prisoners they had captured. Whilst the King was at dinner, two
envoys came from the besieged castle to see if he was really Richard.
When they returned to the castle and reported that the King was
there and told of the preparations he was making, the two governors
of the castle and twelve of their men came to Richard, surrendered
to him, and threw themselves on his mercy. The Archbishop of Can"
terbury on the following day persuaded the remainder of the garrison
to surrender to the King.
Richard had now stamped out the last traces of the disaffection
stirred up by John, and there was no threat to the tranquillity of his
realm. He summoned his bishops and barons to a council at Netting"
ham, and on the second day of the meeting, March 31, he asked for
judgment against John, who was still in France with his confederate,
Philip. He charged that John had betrayed his oath to him, seized
his castles, invaded his territories both in England and in Normandy,
and allied himself with his worst enemy, Philip, In this accusation
72 ["93-
he included Hugh of Nunant, Bishop of Coventry, who had aided
and abetted John. The council accordingly decreed that if John and
Bishop Hugh did not appear within forty days to answer these
charges, John should forfeit all his rights in the kingdom and Bishop
Hugh should be tried by a court of his fellow bishops.
Early in May Richard crossed over to Normandy to repulse the
continued depredations of Philip. He sailed from Portsmouth, landed
at Barfleur on May 12, and hastened towards Verneuil, a strongly
fortified town south of Rouen. On the way he stopped to spend the
night at Lisieux, at the house of Jean d'Alenon, the Archdeacon of
Lisieux. There occurred the first meeting between the brothers since
Richard had started on the Crusade.
The biographer of William Marshal says that after he had eaten,
Richard wanted to rest a bit, but he was so uneasy about the situa-
tion at Verneuil, where Philip was laying siege to the town, that he
could find no repose. Whilst Richard was tossing on his bed, his
host entered, with a sad and preoccupied expression.
"Why are you looking like that?'* the King asked him. "You
have seen my brother John; don't lie to me about it. He is wrong to
be afraid of me. Let him come to me without fear; after all, he is my
brother. If it is true that he has acted foolishly, I shall not reproach
him with it. But as for those who have led him on, they have already
had their reward or will soon have it."
John came in then and threw himself at his brother's feet. Richard
raised him up, saying: "John, don't be afraid. You are only a child.
You have been in bad company. Those who advised you shall pay
for it. Now get up and go eat your dinner."
Richard turned to his host. "What is there to eat?" he asked.
Someone had just brought a fine salmon as a present to the King,
and Richard had it cooked for John.
This homely scene of reconciliation shows how Richard regarded
his younger brother. His attitude toward John seems to have been
-i rppj The Ransoming of Richard j 3
compounded of affection, amusement, and contempt, and his great
heart was too generous to bear John any malice for his bungling at-
tempts to usurp the throne. Both Eleanor and Richard sincerely loved
this youngest son and brother, although at this distance it is hard to
see what they found to love in him. Richard's affection, however, did
not make him blind to John's utter untrustworthiness. He refused to
restore any of John's lands or castles to him, and he apparently for-
bade him to set foot in England again.
Meanwhile, when Philip learned of Richard's arrival he fled from
Verneuil in haste. His strategy, if one chooses to dignify cowardice
with such a name, was to avoid pitched battles and to harass Richard
with border raids, forays, and tentative thrusts at the weak places
along the extensive frontier. The whole military strategy of the time
consisted in capturing castles and laying waste the countryside; of
battles there were few.
Richard hastened south of Loches, in Anjou, some thirty miles
southeast of Tours, to help his brother-in-law, Sancho of Navarre.
Whilst Richard was in Anjou, John, Robert of Beaumont, Earl of
Leicester, and many other barons met at Rouen to defend that city
against Philip, who, as soon as Richard's back was turned, laid siege
to a castle four miles from the city. The French forces greatly out-
numbered the defenders of Rouen, and without Richard's leadership
and example John and his company did not dare attack them. Philip
captured and destroyed the castle. As he was leaving that neighbor-
hood, for a direct attack on Rouen was too risky an undertaking for
him, Philip captured the Earl of Leicester, who had led his forces
from Rouen in an attempt to ambush him.
England lost one of her strongest bishops when Hugh Pudsey
of Durham died in the following spring, on March 3, 1195. Al-
though he was in his seventies, Bishop Hugh was in exuberant
health, full of strength and vigor, and he had no thought that death
was near, trusting, it is said, in the prophecy of St. Godric that he
74
would be blind for the last seven years of his life. After the Bishop's
death, men expert in that branch of knowledge explained that St.
Godric was referring to spiritual, not physical, blindness. Bishop
Hugh ate too heartily of the Shrove Tuesday feast, fell sick, and died
at his manor of Hoveden. He was buried in the chapter house of his
great cathedral on the River Wear.
John succeeded in winning back his brother's favor to such an
extent that in 1195 Richard restored to him the earldoms of Mortain
and of Gloucester and the honor of Eye, but he did not give him any
of the castles that would normally accompany these grants. In place
of all the other earldoms and the vast extent of lands that John had
possessed, Richard granted him an annuity of eight hundred pounds
Angevin, or two hundred pounds in English money. John's friend,
Hugh of Nunant, also regained the King's favor and the Bishopric
of Coventry by paying five thousand marks.
John continued to act a minor part in helping Richard with his
constant warfare against Philip. In 1196 he captured the castle of
Jumteges. In May of the following year he performed a noteworthy
exploit. In company with Mercadier, the leader of Richard's Braban"
tine mercenaries, he appeared before Beauvais, defeated the Bishop
of that city, his knights, and the citizen soldiers in battle. He made
prisoners of the Bishop and the knights, and slew most of the com"
mon people, as was the custom of the time. Bishops and knights
would fetch a good ransom, but no one would bother to buy back a
mere burgher.
Flushed with victory, John and his company went on to Milli,
the castle of the Bishop of Beauvais, took it by assault, and demol-
ished it. Then, "gloriously triumphing/' they returned to Richard in
Normandy and delivered over their prisoners to him.
John had succeeded in bagging big game, for Philip of Dreux,
Bishop of Beauvais, a grandson of Louis VI, was one of the bravest
warriors of his time. He had gone on the Crusade twice and had been
-i rppj The Ransoming of Richard 7 5
captured by the Saracens at the siege of Acre. Richard hated him
with particular violence, for he had served as one of Philip's emis-
saries to persuade the Emperor to keep Richard in captivity, and
Richard considered him responsible for the prolonging of his con-
finement. Even though he was a famous warrior, the Bishop had
such respect for the canon that made irregular those clerics who shed
human blood in violence that he carried no sword. Instead, he armed
himself with a heavy mace, with which he could club his enemies
to death without shedding their blood.
Richard had him imprisoned in Rouen. The Bishop wrote to the
Pope, telling him how, in obedience to the maxims: "It is lawful to
repel force by force" and "Fight for your country/ 3 he had gone
forth to protect his land against Richard, who was raging against
Christ Our Lord like a wolf, had been captured, and was now being
kept in chains and fetters. His Holiness must have heard of this, said
the Bishop, and yet he had done nothing about it. Then he quoted
another maxim: "He is not guiltless who, when he can correct a
fault, pretends that he can do nothing about it; nor is he free from
suspicion of secret connivance who forbears to prevent a manifest
misdeed/'
To this tactful letter the Pope made reply, beginning: "Celestine
the Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his dearly beloved
brother, Philip, Bishop of Beauvais: health and a speedy return from
his course of error/* and telling him: "Into the pit you have made
you have deservedly fallen: where you have been found, there you
have been judged accordingly ." Nevertheless the Pope promised to
write a letter of entreaty, since in this matter he could not command,
to the King of England on his behalf, and closed with a comforting
quotation from Ovid: "Leniter ex merito quicquid patiare, ferendum
**
est.
When Richard received the Pope's letter on behalf of the Bishop,
he sent Celestine the coat of mail, stained with the dust and blood of
76
battle, in which Philip had been captured, with the message: "Holy
Father, know now whether it is thy son's coat or not/'
The Pope made answer: "He is no son of mine or of the Church;
let him be released at the King's pleasure, for he is a soldier of Mars
rather than of Christ."
Richard moved the Bishop to closer confinement in Chinon in
1 198, and although Philip offered a thousand marks for his release,
Richard kept him in captivity as long as the King lived.
Longchamp, like his bitter enemy, John, never succeeded in re-
gaining his position in England, but in Normandy he continued to
enjoy Richard's trust. His master employed him on a number of
important missions, and at the close of 1196 he sent him to Rome to
persuade the Pope to lift the interdict that Walter of Coutances,
Archbishop of Rouen, had laid on the country in retaliation for
Richard's appropriation of church lands on which to build his fortress
of Chateau Gaillard. On the way to Rome Longchamp fell sick at
Poitiers and died there on January zi, 1197. Few in England
mourned for him.
Hugh of Nunant, Bishop of Coventry, John's closest advisor, died
in Normandy on Good Friday, 1198. Although he had been neither
a good man nor a good bishop, he died an edifying death. Knowing
that his end was near, he summoned as many of the clergy of Nor"
mandy as could come to his bedside, and to them he made confession
of all his sins. Chief among them, he declared, was his expelling the
monks from the Cathedral at Coventry and installing secular canons
in their stead. He begged the Abbot of Bee, who was standing by
his bed, to invest him with a monk's habit, "so that he might have as
protectors in the life to come those he had persecuted in this." Thus
attired, he died "more happily than was expected," as Roger of
Wendover remarks.
Meanwhile the indecisive series of battles, forays, counter-forays,
and truces no sooner made than broken were dragging on between
~i 1997 The Ransoming of Richard 77
Richard and Philip. Richard was exhausting his energy and his treav
ure without gaining any permanent advant-ge, and yet if he had re-
laxed in the struggle Philip would have pushed his frontiers farther
into Richard's lands. Philip had not the courage and Richard had not
the means for a decisive campaign that would have settled the con-
flict. Philip invaded Normandy in 1198 and burned Evreux and
seven other towns; John in retaliation burned Neufbourg and cap"
tured eighteen knights.
Philip sent word to Richard early in 1199 that John had gone
over to his side and offered to show Richard the document to that
effect, signed by John. It was indicative both of the impetuousness of
Richard's character and of the low esteem in which he held his
brother that he should have believed this story and deprived John at
once of his lands on both sides of the Channel without giving him a
chance to answer the charge. When John learned the cause of his
brother's anger he sent two knights to Philip's court to prove his in-
nocence or to defend him in trial of battle, as Philip thought proper,
but no one at the French court would accept this challenge. This
convinced Richard that Philip's charge was false, and he received
John back into his favor and restored his lands to him.
Richard heard, in March 1 1 99, of a fabulous treasure-trove on
the lands of his vassal Adomar, Viscount of Limoges. Adomar offered
to share it with his liege lord, but Richard as lord of the demesne
rightfully demanded all of the treasure. When Adomar refused,
Richard laid siege to the castle of Chilus, in which he suspected that
the gold was hidden. Whilst he and his captain-at-arms, Mercadier,
were riding round the castle and looking for the best place at which
to attack it, Richard was wounded at the base of the neck by an ar-
row. The wound became infected, and the bungling attempts of
Mercadier's physician to extract the head of the arrow made matters
worse. Richard knew that he was dying.
He designated John as his heir and had all those present swear
78 /i J93-
fealty to him. The castle having been taken, Richard asked that the
man who had wounded him be brought to him. The dying King
forgave him and ordered that he be set free, but Mercadier flayed
him alive after his master died. Richard received the Last Sacraments,
confessing that through reverence for so great a mystery he had not
received Holy Communion for the last seven years because his heart
was full of mortal hatred for Philip.
Richard died on April 6, 1 199. He ordered that his entrails be
buried at Chalus to mark his contempt for the treacherous Poitevins;
he bequeathed his heart to Rouen to show his gratitude for the in-
comparable fidelity of the people of that city, and he directed that his
body be buried at Fontevrault, at the feet of his father, whom he con-
fessed he had destroyed.
"With him, in the opinion of many/* says Roger of Wendover,
"were buried both the pride and the honor of the chivalry of the
West"
CHAPTER VI
JOHN,
KING OF ENGLAND
1199-1200
OHNwas in Brittany, visiting his nephew Arthur, when
he received the news of Richard's death. His first concern, of
course, was to make sure of his succession to the throne. The
only other prospective heir was this same Arthur, now twelve years
old, the son of John's brother Geoffrey. He had been recognized as
Duke of Brittany by virtue of his mother's position as only heir of
Conan the Little, Duke of Brittany. On Richard's death the nobles
of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, as well as those of Brittany, were
disposed to receive him as the rightful heir. In England the principle
of strictly hereditary succession by primogeniture did not yet obtain,
and little effort seems to have been made there to advance the claims
of Arthur to the crown that Richard had bequeathed to John.
The support of two of the most influential men of the kingdom no
doubt played a large part in securing John's uncontested succession.
Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William Marshal,
the close friend and trusted advisor of both Henry II and Richard,
8o
were at Vaudreuil when Richard died. The messenger sent to tell
them of the King's death found William Marshal getting ready to go
to bed. He dressed again and went to the priory of Notre Dame
du Pre, where the Archbishop was staying.
"Ah, the King is dead!" the Archbishop cried, when William
Marshal had told his news. "What hope have we now? With
Richard dead, there is no one who can defend the realm. The French
will overrun us, with no one able to resist them."
"We must make haste to elect his successor," said the Marshal,
thus showing that even at this late date the ceremony of the election
of the king was no mere empty formality. William evidently thought
that he, the Archbishop, and the other leading men of the kingdom
were the legitimate successors of the Witenagemot of earlier times.
"I think we ought to choose Arthur," the Archbishop said.
"My lord, that would be a bad choice," objected William. "Ar-
thur has some bad counsellors, and he is haughty and full of pride.
If we put him at our head, he will cause us many griefs, for he has
no love for the English. But consider Earl John. In truth, he is the
nearest heir to his father and his brother."
"Marshal, is that your wish?"
"Yes, my lord, for it is only right. The son is nearer to his father's
land than the nephew,"
"Marshal, it shall be as you desire, but I tell you that you will be
sorrier for this than for anything you have ever done."
John immediately sent these two men to England on his behalf
to join Geoffrey FitzPeter, Earl of Essex and Richard's Chief
Justiciar. Their mission was to preserve the peace, govern the coun-
try, and look after John's interests till he himself could come to claim
his crown.
While they set out for England, John went to work to make sure
of his possessions. With a few followers he rode to Chinon on
Wednesday, April 14, to secure Richard's treasury. The keeper,
John, King of England 8 i
Robert of Turnham, delivered it to him, together with the castles
over which he had charge. John attached to himself the members of
his brother's household, who received him as Richard's lawful suc-
cessor. Before them he swore that he would faithfully execute his
brother's will and would keep inviolate all the legitimate customs
and laws of the peoples and lands over which he was to rule.
The great and saintly Hugh of Avalon, Bishop of Lincoln, who
had been one of the most trusted counsellors of Henry II, went to
Fontevrault for Richard's funeral on Palm Sunday, April n, and
remained there for the following three days to celebrate Masses for
the repose of the souls of Richard and his father. Hugh was one of
the most respected men in Europe, and John, in order to bolster up
his own position by the presence of such a man, immediately sent
messengers to the Bishop to beg Hugh to join him.
John went out to meet the Bishop, and at the sight of him he
spurred his horse on, leaving his followers behind, and hurried to
meet him. He greeted the Bishop effusively and begged him to re-
main with him and accompany him back to England. Hugh, how-
ever, had little liking for royal courts and still less for men of such
character as John, and he excused himself from attending him back
to England, agreeing only to remain with him for a few days.
They went to Fontevrault together, so that John might visit the
tombs of his father and brother. When they arrived at the convent,
attended by a crowd of nobles, John himself knocked at the door of
the choir and begged admittance, so that he might see the tombs and
commend himself to the prayers of the community. Two of the nuns
answered his knock and told him that it was forbidden for anyone to
enter the convent or the choir in the absence of the abbess, who was
expected to return from her journey soon. When John insisted, one
of the nuns advised him: "In this matter you would do well to imitate
your father of noble memory, who most esteemed those religious who
kept the rules of their order with rigid and inviolate devotion/*
82
John turned to Bishop Hugh and asked him to use his influence
to obtain the prayers of the nuns on his behalf, promising to give them
rich gifts. "You know I hate all lies/' the Bishop said; "take care not
to make promises that you do not intend to keep/*
John swore that he would indeed keep his promises, and the
Bishop told the nuns of John's good intentions and commended him
to their prayers. Hugh gave his blessing, and they left the church,
John assuring him all the while of the good life he intended to lead.
He showed him a treasure he valued highly, a stone set in gold and
hung about his neck, which he said had been given to one of his
ancestors with the promise from Heaven that any of his successors
who wore it would never be deprived of the fullness of his ancestral
dominions. Hugh rebuked him for this childish superstition.
When they reached the porch of the church, which was decorated
with sculptures of the Last Judgment, Hugh called John's attention
to the representation of kings wearing their regalia among the
damned, waiting to hear the doom: "Go, ye accursed, into everlast-
ing fire/' and pointed out to him that it little profited a king to rule
over many men if he ruled himself so poorly that he ended in eternal
torment.
John, however, drew the Bishop over to the opposite wall, on
which were portrayed kings wearing beautiful crowns and being led
by angels into the joys of Heaven. "These, my lord bishop," he said,
"you should rather have shown to us, for we intend to follow their
example and attain to their fellowship."
For these last three days of Holy Week, records the biographer of
St. Hugh, John made a great show of his reformed conduct. He was
humble and submissive in deeds and in speech; when beggars ran
up to him and wished him good fortune, he diligently thanked them,
bowing and bending his head low; he humbly returned the saluta-
tions of ragged old women by the roadside.
In company with Bishop Hugh, he went to Beaufort in Anjou
-I20oj John, King of England 8 3
to visit his widowed sister-in-law, Queen Berengaria. There he was
joined by his mother. On Easter Sunday, April 18, 1199, Bishop
Hugh celebrated Mass in the presence of John and the two Queens
and the nobles of their households. Three days of exemplary behav-
ior were more than John could endure; at Mass he lapsed into his
old habits of irreverence. At the offertory he came up to the altar, as
was customary, carrying twelve gold pieces that his chamberlain
had given him. He stood before the Bishop, who was waiting for his
offering, a long time, gazing at the coins and shaking them in his
palm. He kept this up for so long that everyone stared at him in
amazement.
"What are you looking at thus?" demanded the Bishop.
'Indeed, I am looking at these gold pieces/' John replied, "and
thinking to myself that if I had had them just a few days ago, I would
not have offered them to you but would have put them in my purse
instead; however, do you now accept them/*
Hugh was so indignant at this irreverence that he withdrew his
hand and would not touch the gold that John offered in such a grudg-
ing fashion, nor would he allow him to kiss his hand.
"Throw down what you are holding and withdraw/* he ordered,
and John cast the coins into the silver offertory dish and returned to
his place.
Bishop Hugh then preached a long sermon aimed at John, in
which he compared the habits of good and of bad princes and con-
trasted their future rewards. John was impatient for his dinner, which,
after the habit of princes, he took early in the day, and three times
he sent one of his attendants to demand that Hugh bring his sermon
to an end and conclude the celebration of Mass, so that his audience
might go to their meal. The only effect of these messages was to
cause the preacher to raise his voice and increase his fervor. All the
congregation applauded him, and many were moved to tears by his
eloquence.
84 I i 199-
John did not receive Holy Communion on this feast day or at
his crowning on Ascension Day; indeed, the biographer of St. Hugh
states that those who knew John best said that he never once received
Holy Communion after he reached years of discretion. That a man
should go through life at that time without ever frequenting the Sacra-
ments seems almost incredible, unless one reflects on the completely
irreligious character of John's life. He was baptized, and that seems
to have been his most active participation in the Christian life.
Bishop Hugh left on the day after Easter, and John turned his
attention to the city of Le Mans, which had been occupied by Con-
stance and Arthur and their adherents. The nobles of Anjou, Maine,
and Touraine were not disposed to accept John as their lord. They
argued that Arthur, as the only son and heir of John's older brother
Geoffrey, was the legitimate heir and was entitled to all that his father
would have received had he been living. In England, on the other
hand, William Marshal's contention that John, as a son of Henry II
and a brother of Richard, had a better claim than Arthur, the grand-
son of one king and a nephew of the other, seems to have been gen-
erally accepted.
The nobles of these three counties met together, declared that
Arthur was their lord, and delivered up the provinces to him. Con-
stance, Arthur's mother, brought the lad to Tours and entrusted him
to King Philip. If Arthur were indeed lord of Anjou, Maine, and
Touraine, then Philip as King of France was his feudal overlord and
had the right to his wardship. Philip had captured Evreux as soon
as he learned of Richard's death, and of course he greatly preferred
that Richard's continental possessions should pass into the hands of
Arthur, a young boy whom he might bend to his own will, rather
than into the hands of John, with whose fickleness and treachery he
was well acquainted. Philip at once sent Arthur to Paris to his son
Louis, as a treasure to be closely guarded, and he took possession of
-izoo] John, King of England 8 5
all the cities, castles, and fortresses that had declared for Arthur and
placed over them governors of his own appointing.
John and his mother, now in her late seventies, captured Le Mans,
the chief city of Maine. To punish the citizens for having accepted
Arthur, John leveled the walls of the city and demolished the castle
and all the houses built of stone.
He left Eleanor and Mercardier, who had served as the leader of
Richard's mercenaries, to ravage Anjou and bring it to submission to
him, while he proceeded to Rouen. Arthur had no adherents in
Normandy, and there John was received without question as Rich"
ard's heir. On Low Sunday, April 25, he was girded with the sword
of the duchy of Normandy before the high altar of the Cathedral of
Rouen by the Archbishop, Walter of Coutances, who placed on
John's head the golden circlet, surmounted by rosettes of gold. The
new Duke swore, according to Roger of Hoveden, "in the presence
of the clergy and the people, upon the Holy Gospels and the relics
of the Saints, that he would preserve Holy Church and her dignitaries
inviolate, with good faith and without evil intent, and would exercise
strict justice and destroy unjust laws and establish good ones/*
The solemnity of the occasion was marred by John's irreverent
behavior. He was accompanied by a crowd of thoughtless compan*
ions, who applauded, laughed, and chattered throughout the cere"
mony. When the Archbishop gave him the lance bearing the banner
of the Dukes of Normandy, John turned to exchange a joke with his
friends and let the lance fall to the ground. This was taken as a pres"
age that as John could not hold the lance neither could he hold the
duchy.
John's position on the Continent had now improved greatly. He
was undisputed Duke of Normandy; Aquitaine was under the firm
hand of its old Duchess, Eleanor; the capture of Le Mans had
checked Arthur's party in Maine, and the vigorous exertions of
86
Eleanor and Mercadier were restoring order in Anjou. John felt that
now he could safely go to England.
In the meantime, his envoys had found the majority of the English
nobles ready to swear fealty to him without hesitation. Nevertheless,
those who had castles were busy stocking them with men and pro*
visions, in anticipation of any civil disturbances that might arise, and
an influential party did not at first seem disposed to accept John. This
group was headed by David, Earl of Huntingdon; Richard, Earl of
Clare; Ranulf de Blundevill, Earl of Chester, who had married
Constance of Brittany after Geoffrey's death and hence was Arthur's
stepfather; William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby; Waleran, Earl of
Warwick; Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester, and William
Mowbray.
Their reluctance could hardly have been due to private griev*
ances, and there is little indication that they thought Arthur the
rightful heir, although his stepfather was one of the group. It is more
likely that they wanted to seize this occasion, when John needed
their support, to exact from him a pledge that he would respect the
customary rights of the barons. Henry II throughout his reign at"
tempted to curb the power of his nobles and to substitute a strong
central government for the unorganized local liberty of the feudal
system. The barons were still smarting from his vigorous curtailment
of their irresponsible behavior and from the crushing taxes Richard
had levied, and on the occasion of John's accession they grasped the
opportunity of demanding an assurance that their liberties and privi'
leges would not be further diminished.
John's three representatives summoned these nobles and others
whose fidelity they doubted to a meeting at Northampton, and there
they pledged their word to the barons that John would give each
of diem his lawful rights if they would pledge their allegiance to him
and swear to keep the peace.
John crossed over from Normandy and landed at Shoreham on
-i zoo] John, King of Engknd 87
May 25, 1 199- He came up to London on the following day, and
on May 27, the Feast of the Ascension, he was anointed and
crowned in Westminster Abbey by Hubert Walter. The Abbey was
decorated for the occasion with two thousand yards of linen cloth, at
a cost of 21 os. 6d. John took the customary triple oath "to love
Holy Church and her ordained priests and to preserve her safe from
the attacks of evil designers; to do away with bad laws and substitute
good ones in their stead; and to see justice rightly administered
throughout England/* Not satisfied with this oath, Hubert Walter
cautioned him not to accept the crown unless he intended fully to
keep the oath he had sworn, and John replied that with God's help
he would keep the oath in all good faith.
Matthew Paris, writing in the next reign at least thirtyseven years
after the event, says that Hubert Walter made the following address:
"Hear, all of you, and be it known that no one has an antecedent
right to succeed another in the kingship, unless he shall have been
unanimously elected, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, on ac-
count of the superior merit of his character, after the example of
Saul, the first anointed king, whom the Lord set over His people,
but not because he was the son of a king or born of royal ancestry. In
the same way, after Saul came David, the son of Jesse. Saul was
chosen because he was a brave man and suited for the royal dignity;
David, because he was holy and humble. Thus those who excel in
virtue are elevated to the kingly dignity. But if any relation of a de-
ceased king should excel the others in merit, everyone should all the
more readily and zealously consent to his election. We have said
this to uphold the cause of Earl John, who is here present, the brother
of our illustrious King Richard, lately deceased without heirs of his
body; and as the said Earl John is prudent, active, and indubitably
noble, we have, under God's Holy Spirit, unanimously elected him
because of his merits and his royal blood/*
Whether or not such a speech was indeed made, it seems probable
88 /i *99-
that some sort of election by acclamation did take place, in compli-
ance with the old English custom of electing the king from among
the members of the royal house. This was the last time that the
crowning of an English king was preceded by such a ceremony of
election. In any case, whether John was elected or not, the presence
and participation of the principal bishops and nobles of the realm at-
tested to the fact that they received him without question as the law-
ful heir. Of those whom Hubert Walter had conciliated at North-
ampton, the Earls of Clare, Derby, Warwick, and Chester were
present, and Waleran, Earl of Warwick, bore the right-hand Sword
of State in the coronation procession. In addition to three archbish-
ops, fourteen bishops, and the aforementioned earls, the Earls of
Leicester, Warenne, Salisbury, Striguil, Norfolk, and Arundel, as
well as many barons, participated in the ceremony. The Bishop of
Durham, Philip of Pictavia, who had succeeded Hugh Pudsey, pro-
tested that John's crowning should not take place in the absence of
his brother Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, who had gone to Rome,
but John would not delay the ceremony till his return.
The crowning was followed by the customary feast. Some idea of
the scale of the banquet can be gathered from the fact that twenty-one
fat oxen had been bought in Worcester for 6 IDS. 6d. and sent to
Westminster for the feast. At this time, John girded William Marshal
with the sword of the Earldom of Pembroke and Striguil and Geof-
frey FitzPeter with that of Essex.
William Marshal enjoyed a reputation for courage, military prow-
ess, knightly virtue, and chivalric honor exceeded in his day only by
that of his master Richard. He had covered himself with glory in the
Holy Land after the death of the young Henry, whose faithful com-
panion and tutor he had been. He was a man of unswerving fidelity
and loyalty, and he had been among the most trusted servants and
friends of both Henry II and Richard. He was the son of John
Marshal, a distinguished soldier, and his wife Sibyl, the sister of
-xaooj John, King of England 8 9
Earl Patrick of Salisbury. William was a poor and landless knight
till his marriage in 1189 to Isabella de Clare, "la bone, la bele, k
sage, la corteise de halt parage" "the good, the beautiful, the wise,
the courteous dame of high degree." She was the only child and heir"
ess of Richard de Clare, the famous "Strongbow" of Ireland, second
Earl of Pembroke and Striguil, and of his wife Eva, the daughter of
Dermot MacMurrough. She brought him vast estates in Ireland and
Wales, and in her right William assumed the title of Earl of Pern"
broke and Striguil.
Geoffrey FitzPeter's claim to the Earldom of Essex also derived
from his wife, Beatrice de Say. Richard had appointed him Chief
Justiciar when Hubert Walter resigned that office on July 1 1 , 1198.
Geoffrey was forced to carry out many oppressive measures in order
to raise the money that Richard was pouring into his campaigns in
France, and his popularity among his fellow barons naturally suf-
fered. He was, however, a loyal servant of the King, and John con"
tinued him in his office.
In both these cases John merely confirmed formally the two Earls
in the possession of the lands and titles they had been enjoying for the
past ten years. Girded with the swords of their earldoms, they waited
on the King during the feast.
On this day John appointed as his chancellor Hubert Walter,
Archbishop of Canterbury. Hubert, an East Anglian by birth, had
served as chaplain or clerk to his uncle, Ranulf de Glanville, Chief
Justiciar under Henry II and one of the men chiefly responsible for
carrying through the great legal and administrative reforms of Hen"
ry's reign. Hubert was made Dean of York in 1 1 86, and when Rich"
ard came to the throne he appointed him Bishop of Salisbury. He
went to the Holy Land with Richard and acted as a sort of Chaplain
in Chief to the English crusaders. He won die respect of the whole
army by his zeal, by his practical spirituality, and by his untiring ef"
forts in behalf of the common soldiers. He was made Archbishop of
90 /"II99-
Canterbury shortly after his return to England in 1 193, and Rich-
ard made him his Chief Justiciar towards the end of that year. When
Innocent III succeeded to the Papacy in 1 198, he renewed the old
decrees forbidding the clergy to hold secular offices, and he ordered
Richard not to allow Hubert to continue in his position as Chief
Justiciar and in the future not to admit him or any other priest or
bishop to a secular office. Hubert thereupon resigned his office,
which was given to Geoffrey FitzPeter.
When John offered him the office of chancellor, Hubert accepted
it, contrary to canon law, the express orders of the Pope, and all
precedents. One of his associates, Hugh Bardolph, a Baron of the Ex-
chequer and a Justiciar of the Curia Regis, warned him: "My lord, if
you really were to consider well the power of your name and the dig-
nity of your position, you would not impose on yourself the yoke of
slavery. We have never seen or heard of a chancellor being made
out of an archbishop, but we have seen an archbishop made out of a
chancellor/'
Immediately after his crowning, John visited the shrines of St. Al-
ban in Hertfordshire, St. Edmund at the great abbey in Suffolk, and
St. Thomas at Canterbury. Although at Bury St. Edmunds John and
his retinue were entertained at vast expense with the magnificence be-
fitting the greatest abbey in England, Jocelyn of Brakelond noted
that the King's only gift to the holy Martyr's shrine was a silken cloth
that some of his servants had borrowed from the Sacristan and that,
says Jocelyn sourly, he has not paid for yet, and at the Mass cele-
brated in the King's presence his offering was thirteen pennies.
No one in England was now disposed to dispute John's title to
the crown, but trouble was threatening in Scotland. As soon as Wil-
liam the Lion, King of the Scots, heard of Richard's death, he sent
envoys to England to demand the counties of Northumberland and
Cumberland. The three men whom John had placed in charge of the
-izoo] John, King of England 9 1
government would not allow the envoys to continue their journey
and cross over to the Continent to lay these claims before John in pep
son. Instead they sent David, Earl of Huntingdon, to Scotland to tell
his brother the King to wait till John came to England before he took
any action. John, when he heard of William's demands, sent word to
him that if he would keep the peace till John arrived in England he
would satisfy all his demands.
After John was crowned, William's envoys came to him and re-
newed their master's claims. John said to them: "When your lord,
the King of the Scots, my much'loved brother, comes to me, I will do
for him what is just, in relation both to this and to his other demands/'
He sent the Bishop of Durham to Scotland to escort William into
England and went to Northampton on June 5 to wait for him. Wil"
liam, however, chose not to come but sent a message by the Bishop of
St. Andrews that if John did not grant his demands he would get
possession of the disputed territories by force. He appointed a truce
of forty days in which John was to answer, and he set to work assenv
bling an army. John placed the two disputed counties under the
charge of William de Stuteville, who had previously shown his loy
alty to him at the siege of Tickhill in March 1 1 93. All of William's
threats and preparations came to nothing, for he dismissed his army
after having, it is said, been warned of impending disaster by a vision
at the shrine of St. Margaret at Dumferline.
Since no trouble now threatened in England, John crossed over to
Normandy, leaving Hubert Walter as Chancellor and Geoffrey Fitz-
Peter as Chief Justiciar. He landed at Dieppe on June 20, 1 1 99 and
proceeded to Rouen. There a great number of soldiers, both horse
and foot, came flocking to him to offer their services against the
French. Philip met him at Rouen on June 24 and had an opportunity
to observe the feelings of the Normans. This led him to propose a
truce till the day after the Feast of the Assumption, August 15.
On this same day Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, arrived in Rouen
from Rome and was honorably and affectionately received by his
brother.
Just before the expiration of the truce with Philip, the Count of
Flanders came and did homage to John. The adherence of this pow
erful nobleman strengthened John's hand considerably, as did the
news that his nephew Otto, the son of his eldest sister Matilda and
Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, had been recognized as rightful
Emperor by the Pope. Otto sent him word to delay making peace
with Philip till he could send his uncle all the help possible.
In the meantime, some knights of Philip's household had captured
the Bishop'elect of Cambrai, an adherent of the Count of Flanders,
and had turned him over to Philip. Philip put him in prison. Cardinal
Peter of Capua, the Papal Legate in France, put that country under
an interdict in order to force Philip to release the Bishop. At the same
time, in a fine show of impartiality, he declared Normandy under in-
terdict because Philip of Dreux, Bishop of Beauvais, had been kept
in confinement ever since his capture in 1 1 97. Philip released his
captive, and John his, but not until the Bishop of Beauvais had paid
him two thousand marks for his board and lodging while he was in
prison. When he was released, Philip of Dreux swore, in the pres"
ence of the Cardinal Legate and other ecclesiastics, that he would
never again, as long as he lived, bear arms against another Christian.
In order to strengthen his position at the forthcoming conference
with John that was to mark the end of the truce, Philip knighted the
young Arthur and received his homage not only for Brittany but for
Anjou, Maine, Poitou, Touraine, and Normandy as well. On the
1 6th and i/th of August the envoys of both Kings held a conference
at a place between Boutavant and Le Goulet but could come to no
agreement. On the third day the two Kings conferred in person.
Philip demanded die Norman Vexin, on the grounds that John's
grandf ather, Geoffrey of Anjou, had given it to Philip's grandfather,
-I20oj John, King of England 9 3
Louis the Fat, in return for Louis's assistance in gaming Normandy
from King Stephen. For Arthur he demanded Poitou, Anjou, Maine,
and Touraine.
John would agree to none of these terms, and the two Kings parted
without having arrived at any settlement. A member of Philip's court
asked him afterwards why he so bitterly hated John, who had after
all done him no injury and who had been his friend and ally in the
past. Philip's answer revealed a feeling of wounded dignity, for he
replied that before taking possession of his territories John should
have come to him and asked his permission and then done homage
for them. Technically, Philip was right, for he was the feudal over"
lord of those territories. John, however, knew that the tie binding
them to the French crown was a purely formal one, and he had no
intention of conceding that the King of France had any voice in de*
termining the disposition of the territories that had belonged to Henry
and to Richard.
When it became known that there was to be no peace between
John and Philip, the French nobles who had adhered to Richard
came to his successor and did homage to him. They swore that they
would not make peace with Philip without John's knowledge and
consent, and John in turn swore not to make any treaties with Philip
in which they were not included.
Philip began his campaign with some measure of success. In Sep'
tember he took the castle of Conches, near Evreux, and in the fol"
lowing month he took Balun. This castle he leveled to the ground.
William des Roches, the leader of Arthur's Breton army, protested
against this destruction of a fortress over which Arthur, by Philip's
own recognition, had jurisdiction, but Philip answered sharply that
he would do just as he pleased with any territory that he took from
John, whether Arthur liked it or not. This incident opened Wil"
liam's eyes to the fact that his young master was a mere puppet in
Philip's hands, to give a pretense of legality to his efforts tp take
94
John's territories, and aroused his suspicion that the French King in-
tended to hold as his own all the land he so gained.
Philip next laid siege to Lavardin, on the left bank of the Loire,
near Vendome, but for the first time John scored a success against
him. He and his army surprised Philip at the siege and forced him to
withdraw to Le Mans. John then gave close pursuit and drove him
out of Maine. Philip had entrusted both the city of Le Mans and
the person of Arthur to William des Roches. William now came to
John and arranged a peace between him and Arthur, as a result of
which John took possession of Le Mans and received Arthur and his
mother, Constance, who had lately deserted her second husband,
Ranulf de Blundevill, Earl of Chester, and married Guy of Thouars.
When John entered Le Mans, the Viscount of Thouars, the
brother of Constance's new husband, at John's summons came to him
and surrendered the castle of Chinon and the seneschalship of Anjou.
John distrusted the Viscount, and rightly. On the day of the Vis-
count's arrival at Le Mans, someone warned Arthur that his uncle,
with whom he had just made peace, intended to keep him in prison
for the rest of his life. That night Arthur, Constance, and the Vis-
count fled to Angers, which was then in Arthur's possession.
At this point another truce was agreed upon with Philip, and John
spent his Christmas peacefully at Bures in Normandy.
In addition to these spirited doings of great people, the year 1199
was notable in England for the heavy rains and floods, which washed
away bridges and houses. The bridge at Berwick was carried away by
the floodwaters of the Tweed.
The publication of an ordinance regulating the price of wine was
another notable event of the year. John loved wine. When he went
from London to Northampton at the Whitsuntide after his crowning,
fifteen carts were required to haul the wine for the use of the King
and his household. He now took practical steps to make wine avail-
able to his richer subjects at a price they could afford to pay. He fixed
-I200/ John, King of England 9 5
the maximum price of red wine at fourpence the gallon and of white
wine at sixpence, and he ordered that in every town in which wine
was sold twelve inspectors should be appointed to see that the regu'
lations as to price and measure were observed. If anyone was found
violating the law, all his goods were to be seized, and he was to be
kept in prison till the King sent further orders.
This statute went into effect in December 1199, and the mep
chants immediately complained that it was ruining them. The price
was then raised to sixpence a gallon for red wine and eightpence for
white. Even this rate must have been a considerable reduction from
the one formerly obtaining, for Roger of Hoveden complains that
immediately after it went into effect "the land was filled with drink
and with drunkards/'
John and Philip met near Les Andelys about the middle of Jan'
uary i zoo for another conference, at which they agreed on terms for
a lasting peace. As the cornerstone, the two Kings arranged for a mar-
riage between Philip's only son, Louis, then thirteen years old, and
John's niece Blanche, who was of about the same age and the dauglv
ter of his sister Eleanor and Alfonso IX of Castile. As dowry John
agreed to give her the city and county of Evreux, all the Norman
castles that Philip had in his possession on the day of Richard's death,
and the sum of thirty thousand marks. In addition, John took an oath
that he would not help his nephew Otto with either money or men
in his struggle with the Duke of Swabia, the other contestant for the
Imperial crown. They planned another meeting in the summer, by
which time all the provisions of the treaty were to be carried out.
John entrusted the important mission of obtaining Blanche's hand
for Louis and of bringing her to France to his mother. That doughty
woman set out, in mid-winter, for the court of Castile, to visit her
daughter Eleanor and to bring her granddaughter back with her.
Philip was in the midst of difficulties with the Church, which
made him the more willing to come to terms with John. After die
96
death of his first wife, Isabella, the mother of his son Louis, Philip
had married Ingeborg, the daughter of the King of Denmark, on
August 14, 1 1 93, partly with the hope of thus reviving the old Dan-
ish claims to the throne of England. As soon as they were married,
Philip conceived an unconquerable aversion, so he said, to his new
wife. Three months later he persuaded some of his more pliable bish-
ops to pronounce the marriage void, on the grounds of consanguinity.
Ingeborg appealed to the Pope, and in 1196 he nullified the deci-
sion of the bishops and forbade Philip to take another wife. Never-
theless, Philip, in June 1196, went through the form of marriage
with Agnes, the daughter of Bertold IV, Duke of Meran. In 1 199
Pope Innocent III ordered him to put away Agnes and take back
Ingeborg, his lawful wife. Philip refused, and Innocent laid the king-
dom of France under interdict on January 1 5, izoo. At first Philip
put up a stout resistance. He expelled the bishops and priests who ob-
served the interdict and confiscated their goods, and he laid heavy
fines on the laymen who obeyed the papal order.
While Philip was thus engaged, John, accompanied by Geoffrey,
Archbishop of York, came over to England to raise the thirty thou-
sand marks for Blanche's dowry. He sailed from Barfleur and landed
at Portsmouth on February 27. Immediately he took up the ques-
tion of raising money. The ordinary unit for purposes of taxation was
a measure of land variously called a ploughland, a hide, or a carucate
and embracing roughly i zo acres of arable land. John levied a tax of
three shillings on each ploughland and apparently encountered little
difficulty in raising the sum, except in the archdiocese of York, where
Geoffrey would not permit the King's officers to collect the tax from
his lands.
John went to York during Lent to meet William of Scotland,
whom he had summoned to come to pay him homage, but William
again did not come. John spent Easter in Worcester and returned to
Normandy towards die end of April.
-i 200] John, King of England 97
Queen Eleanor, in the meantime, had been successful in her mis-
sion in Castile. She and Blanche arrived in Bordeaux in time for the
Easter festival. Eleanor, being understandably "fatigued with old age
and the labor of the length of the journey/* in the words of Roger of
Hoveden, went to the convent at Fontevrault, where her husband
and her son Richard were buried. She entrusted Blanche to the care
of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, and he escorted her to Normandy
and delivered her to John.
John and Philip concluded the treaty of Le Goulet on June zi,
1200. John bestowed the city and county of Evreux on Louis, to-
gether with the other territories previously agreed on, as a marriage
portion for Blanche. On the following day the young couple were
married by the Archbishop of Bordeaux, in the presence of the
French court. John had intended that the ceremony should be per-
formed by his brother Geoffrey, but the Archbishop of York refused
to come when John summoned him. Blanche was already distin-
guished by the beauty that made her one of die most attractive figures
of her age. At a time when few royal marriages turned out happily,
on this day Blanche and Louis began a married life that lasted for
twenty-six years without their ever being parted for as much as a day.
On the day of the marriage John and Philip held another confer-
ence, this time at Vernon, in Philip's territory. Philip recognized
John's title to his continental territories, including Brittany, and Ar-
thur, on Philip's advice, did homage to his uncle for Brittany, Ar-
thur remained, however, in Philip's charge.
John might well congratulate himself on having concluded the
treaty of Le Goulet, arranged the marriage of his niece with Philip's
son, and gained an undisputed title to all the territories of his predeces-
sor. In a little more than a year he had won more from Philip than
his brother had in die ten years of his reign, and prospects may have
seemed fair to him for a lasting peace with France. Even a superficial
knowledge of die character of Philip, however, would indicate that
98 /i *99-
lie would observe the treaty only as long as it suited his convenience
to do so. Philip's boundless ambition, his faithlessness and duplicity,
and his unceasing efforts to strengthen in every way possible the
power of the French throne were assurances enough that there could
be no lasting peace between France and England so long as the
English king had jurisdiction over any of the lands belonging, if only
nominally, to the French crown. Although a situation in which the
King of England, as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, and
Count of Anjou and of Maine, owed feudal homage and service to
the King of France as his overlord was a logical development of the
feudal system, the practical consequences of the situation involved
many contradictions. Only a weak overlord, such as Philip's imme-
diate predecessors had been, who refrained from exacting his full
dues, would tolerate a vassal who was stronger than his lord, and, on
the other hand, the King of England, one of the most powerful mon-
archs of Europe, could not well brook being a vassal of a lord less
powerful than he himself.
Even strong and capable kings like Henry II and Richard found
that it took unceasing efforts and the expenditure of the greater part
of their time and treasure merely to keep their continental possessions
from open revolt and Philip of France at bay. As Philip consolidated
his position and grew in strength, such a task became increasingly dif-
ficult. Although John no doubt hastened the process, no English
king in these circumstances could long have retained Normandy, the
territory for which Philip struggled the most persistently.
CHAPTER. VI]
THE LOSS OF
NORMANDY
1200-1205
|rMMEDI ATELY after the conference at Vernon, John
|j set out on a progress through his continental territories. He took
&L a large army with him into Aquitaine, a territory he had not vis"
ited since his accession to the throne, but the nobles there offered no
resistance to his claims, thanks to the energetic measures of their old
Duchess, his mother. For once, all of John's territories were at peace.
Such a state did not last long. John himself took the first steps to"
ward stirring up trouble by alienating the loyalties of many of his con'
tinental vassals and of a powerful party of his English nobles. He had
been married to Hadwisa of Gloucester for over ten years and had
had no children by her. The Archbishop of Canterbury had forbid"
den the marriage and laid John's lands under interdict when his pro-
hibition had been disregarded. The Papal Legate, however, had lifted
the interdict pending an appeal to Rome. This appeal had been de-
cided in John's favor, and a dispensation was granted.
100 [l200-
During the summer of 1 200 John submitted the question of the
validity of his marriage to the Archbishop of Bordeaux and the Bish-
ops of Poitiers and Saintes. That John had any scruples about his
marriage is hard to believe; it is more probable that he had grown
tired of Hadwisa and had given up hope of having any children by
her. It is significant that he did not ask the Pope for a decision but
instead referred the matter to bishops of his own lands. These prelates
obligingly pronounced the marriage invalid on the grounds of con"
sanguinity, in spite of the dispensation granted by the Pope, if in-
deed they knew that such a dispensation had ever been granted.
John parted from Hadwisa but kept her dowry. He used part of it
to satisfy the claims of his vassal Aumary de Montfort, Count of Ev-
reux, the son of Hadwisa's older sister Mabel. The county of Evreux
had been ceded to Louis as part of Blanche's dowry, and John made
restitution to Aumary by giving him, in place of Evreux, die county
of Gloucester, which Hadwisa had inherited from her father. Had-
wisa is heard of no more till in 1 2 1 4 she married Geoffrey de Mande-
ville, the son of John's Chief Justiciar, Geoffrey FitzPeter.
John immediately cast about for another wife and sent an imposing
group of ambassadors, both English and Norman, to Sancho I, King
of Portugal, to ask for the hand of his daughter, whose reputation for
beauty had interested John. While the embassy was on its mission,
John's fancy was suddenly taken by Isabella, the twelve-year-old
daughter of Aymar, Count of Angoulme, and he immediately mar-
ried her. Roger of Hoveden says that he did this on the advice of
Philip. The French King could not well be considered a competent
advisor in such matters, for his own matrimonial difficulties had
caused his lands to be under interdict at this very time.
In any case, in view of the trouble this affair stirred up, John could
hardly have chosen worse. His repudiation of Hadwisa offended
many of his English barons; his marriage with Isabella was equally
offensive to many of the French nobles. On the advice of King Rich-
-12057 The Loss of Normandy
10 i
ard, Isabella had been solemnly betrothed to Hugh of Lusignan,
Count of La Marche and a member of the most powerful family of
Poitou. Because of her youth, she was living with the family of the
Count of La Marche till she should reach marriageable age, when
the contract with Hugh would be completed. When her father
learned that John had conceived a passion for her, he gained posses-
sion of her by trickery and gave her in marriage to the King, who was
twentyone years her senior. They were married by the Archbishop
of Bordeaux at Angouleme on August 26, 1200. The Lusignan fam-
ily were of course highly offended by this violation of contract and
became John's implacable enemies.
After his marriage John went to Anjou and took a hundred and
fifty hostages from among the members of the leading families. These
hostages he caused to be kept under guard as pledges for the good be'
havior of the Angevin nobility.
In the meantime, Philip's difficulties with the Holy See were in'
creasing. The interdict under which his kingdom had been laid sus'
pended all public religious services, and the dead had to be buried
along the lanes, in unconsecrated ground. In spite of the pleading of
numerous emissaries sent to him by Philip, Innocent III refused to
lift the interdict unless Philip submitted to the Church and put away
Agnes of Meran. At last, on September 7, 1200, Philip made his
submission. In the presence of the Papal Legate and the archbishops
and bishops of France, he publicly repudiated Agnes and took back
Ingeborg. The Legate then lifted the interdict, the bells rang again
after their long silence, and there was general rejoicing among die
people.
Although Philip thus effected a formal reconciliation with the
Church, his matrimonial difficulties were by no means ended. Agnes
was pregnant at this time. She retired to the Chateau of Poissy and
died there in giving birth, early in 1 20 1, to a child who survived her
by only a few days. Philip meanwhile applied again for an annul"
102 [l200-
ment of his marriage to Ingeborg. When it was denied, he had her
put in ignominious confinement, without the companionship of a sin-
gle friendly person, with little opportunity to practice her religion,
with scraps for food, and without even the common decencies of life.
Thus she remained for the next thirteen years. Philip, needless to say,
did not lack for feminine companionship during this period.
Ever since Geoffrey of York had returned to England with John
in February i zoo, his troubles and difficulties with his brother had
been increasing. He had purchased the office of Sheriff of York from
Richard for three thousand marks but had not yet paid the money.
John pressed him for it, apparently during the time when he was
raising the money promised to Philip at the conference at Les An-
delys, but Geoffrey either could not or would not pay the sum.
John accordingly deprived him of his office as Sheriff and gave it
to Geoffrey FitzPeter, who appointed James of Poterne his deputy.
James seems to have entered upon his new duties with more force
than tact, for he immediately evicted Geoffrey's servants by violence
and laid waste his property. Geoffrey, with bells ringing and candles
burning, excommunicated James and his followers. He also excom-
municated the townspeople of Beverley because they had broken into
his park and damaged his property, and he suspended the town from
the celebration of divine services and from the ringing of the church
bells. While he was at it, he excommunicated all those who had
stirred up or who wished unjustly to stk up the King's anger against
him.
As a result of Geoffrey's failure to pay the three thousand marks
he owed the King, of his refusal to allow the King's officers to collect
in the Archdiocese of York the tax of three shilling on each plough-
land that had been levied in the spring, of his having refused to cross
over to Normandy to officiate at the wedding of Blanche and Louis,
and of his having excommunicated the King's officer, the Undersher-
-12057 The Loss of Normandy 103
iff of York, John in the summer of i zoo ordered him to be deprived
of all his manors and estates.
John and his young bride crossed over to England and landed at
Dover on October 8, 1200. They proceeded to London and were
crowned in Westminster Abbey by Hubert Walter, in the presence
of the nobles of England. On this occasion, the King's singers, Bus*
tace and Ambrose, sang the Laudes Regiae and were paid twenty
five shillings. The Laudes were sung only before the King on the
most solemn occasions. After the antiphon, Christus vincit, Christus
regnat, Christus imperat, and a prayer for the Pope, the singers con-
tinued antiphonally:
RegiAnglorumaDeocoronato: Solas et victoria.
Redemptor mundi: Tu ilium adjuva.
Sancte JEdmunde: Tu ilium adjuva.
Sancte Ermingilde: Tu ilium adjuva.
Sancte Oswalde: Tu ilium adjuva.
Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat:
Exaudi Christe!
Regime Anglorum: Salus et vita!
Redemptor mundi: Tu illam adjuva.
Sancta Maria: Tu illam adjuva.
Sancta Felicitas: Tu illam adjuva.
Sancta Mtheldnda: Tu illam adjuva.
Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat:
Exaudi Christe!
There followed prayers for the clergy, nobility, and army of Eng"
land and a set of variations on the theme Christus vincit, Christus
regnat, Christus imperat.
Geoffrey of York attended the ceremony, and it was probably at
this time that he effected a reconciliation with his brother. John re'
104 /"l200-
stored his lands and appointed a day for him to appear in the King's
Court and answer the charges against him.
Soon after this, John sent an imposing delegation to William the
Lion. The Bishop of Durham; the Earl of Norfolk; William's
nephew, the Earl of Hereford, and his brother David, Earl of Hun-
tingdon; Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester; Eustace de Vesci and
Robert de Ros, who had married William's bastard daughters Mar-
garet and Isabella, and the Sheriff of Northumberland presented to
William letters from John giving him safe conduct and asking him
to meet the King at Lincoln in order to perform the homage he had
so long delayed.
Hugh of Avalon, Bishop of Lincoln, was at this time on his death-
bed in London. John came to pay his respects to this great ecclesi-
astic, who had been one of the principal advisors of his father and
whose reputation for great piety, profound moral courage, exemplary
purity of life, and heroic sanctity had spread over all of England and
France.
During the preceding summer Bishop Hugh had revisited the
Grande Chartreuse, where he had served as a monk in his youth, be-
fore Henry II had called him to England. On his way back to Eng-
land he fell sick of a quartan ague and was with difficulty brought to
London, to the Old Temple, the residence of the Bishops of Lin-
coln. He lay ill there for several months. John visited him, confirmed
his will, and promised that in the future he would ratify the reason-
able wills of all prelates instead of confiscating all their personal
property, as had been the royal custom.
From London John went to Lincoln to meet William the Lion.
On November 22, 1200, in the presence of the bishops and barons
of England, on a lofty hill outside the city in the sight of all the peo-
ple, William did homage to John and swore fealty to him "for life,
for limb, for earthly honor, against all men/* He then renewed his
demand for Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland,
-i 205J Tfee Loss of Normandy 105
which he asserted were a part of his patrimony. The two Kings could
come to no agreement concerning these counties, whereupon John
asked for a truce till the following Whitsuntide to deliberate on the
matter.
Bishop Hugh, meanwhile, had died on November 17. On the
2Oth the citizens of London began their procession to Lincoln with
the Bishop's body. The Journey occupied four days, and Roger of
Wendover records that although the procession was made through
winter winds and rains, they were never without the light of at least
one candle. When the procession arrived at die outskirts of Lincoln,
the two Kings, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, thirteen
bishops, and all the earls and barons went out to meet it. John helped
carry the bier on his shoulders to the door of the Cathedral.
Lincoln Cathedral, except for the West Front, had been almost
wholly destroyed by the great earthquake of 1185, and Hugh had
begun the rebuilding. The Choir known now by his name was his
work, and he had helped carry stones and mortar on his own shoul"
ders to build it. His body lay in the Choir through the night of No-
vember 23, whilst the Office of the Dead was chanted. A Requiem
Mass was celebrated on the following morning in the presence of
the two Kings, the Archbishops and bishops, and many of the nobil"
ity of England, and Hugh was buried in the Chapel of St. John the
Baptist, in the northeastern transept. Miracles of healing were re-
ported immediately, and he was canonized twenty years later. When
work on the great Angel Choir, to the east of St. Hugh's Choir, was
sufficiently advanced, the body was moved to a shrine there in 1 280.
While John was at Lincoln, twelve Cistercian abbots came to him
and complained that his foresters were destroying their cattle and
driving them out of the royal pastures and forests and that they and
the poor for whom they were responsible were being ruined. John
fell at their feet and begged forgiveness. He promised them his pro-
tection, confirmed their right to graze their cattle in the royal forests.
io6 [ 1200-
and vowed to build for them an abbey "for the good of my soul and
the souls of my parents, and for the security of my kingdom." He
kept this promise by building the abbey at Beaulieu in Hampshire,
probably in 1 204. He gave it a rich endowment of land in the New
Forest, a hundred and twenty cows and twelve bulls, a golden chal-
ice, and a yearly tun of 250 gallons of wine. Thirty monks from
Citeaux moved into the new abbey.
John spent the Christmas of 1 200 at Guildford in Surrey. He dis-
tributed a number of rich garments among his knights at the Christ-
mas feast. Hubert Walter, not to be outdone, did the same thing at
Canterbury. John, thinking that his chancellor was trying to put him-
self on the same level as the King, was greatly annoyed by this.
John returned in January to Lincoln, where the question of Bishop
Hugh's successor was being discussed. John wanted the chapter to
elect Roger, the brother of Robert FitzParnell, Earl of Leicester, who
was then Bishop of St. Andrew's and the chancellor of William the
Lion, but the canons insisted on their right to elect their bishop freely,
without dictation from the King. Since neither side would give in to
the other they could arrive at no agreement, and the see remained
vacant.
John went next to Cottingham, where he was entertained by Wil-
liam de Stuteville, into whose charge he had given Northumberland
and Cumberland shortly after his crowning. He had also given him
leave to build a castle at Cottingham, and it was probably there that
the King was entertained.
On the next day he went to Beverley. The canons wanted to re-
ceive him with a procession and the ringing of bells, but the Arch-
bishop would not allow this, for he had excommunicated the towns-
people of Beverley and specifically had forbidden the ringing of
bells. A certain John le Gros, who also had been excommunicated by
Geoffrey, offered John a sum of money to induce the King to visit
him, and this John did. Geoffrey had a manor at Beverley, and John
12057 "The Loss of Normandy 107
tried to take from it some of Geoffrey's wine. Henry des Chapelles,
the Archbishop's servant, would not allow the King to have any of
the wine, and John had him thrown into prison. He also ordered
that all of Geoffrey's servants should be arrested, wherever they might
be found.
The King and Queen were at Scarborough on Candlemas Day,
February 2, 1201. John and his court then made a progress through
the North, as far as the Scottish border, and wherever he went he
laid heavy fines on the people, on the grounds that they had laid waste
the royal forests. John and Isabella visited York at mid-Lent, and
there Geoffrey arrived at an understanding with his brother. In re-
turn for the sum of a thousand marks, which Geoffrey undertook to
pay within a year, John restored his manors to him, released his serv-
ants from prison, and gave him a charter confirming the liberties of
the Church of York as they had been in the days of Geoffrey's prede"
cessor. Geoffrey, on his side, absolved William de Stuteville and
James of Poterne from the sentence of excommunication he had laid
on them.
The royal couple spent Easter, March 25, at Canterbury, and
John revived the old English custom of wearing his crown in solemn
state at the celebration of the feast. On the three great holy days of
the year, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday, it had been die custom
for the Archbishop of Canterbury or, in his absence, the ranking
prelate, solemnly to place the crown on the King's head in his private
apartments. Then the King, the clergy, and the barons walked in pro-
cession into the church for the celebration of the Mass. At the Of"
fertory the King made his offering in the same solemn form that was
observed at the Coronation Mass. After Mass, the procession re-
turned to the King's apartments, and he exchanged the heavy crown
and ceremonial robes for lighter ones, which he wore during the
feast that followed.
This custom had been discontinued by Henry II when he and
io8 /"i2oo-
Eleanor had laid their crowns on the tomb of Bishop Wulfstan in his
Cathedral of Worcester at Easter, 1158 and had vowed not to
wear them again. When Richard had returned from his captivity and
was crowned again at Winchester on April 17, 1 194, it is probable
that instead of re-enacting the coronation ceremony itself on that oc-
casion, he revived the old ceremony of the wearing of the crown,
which had been half-forgotten in the previous thirty-six years. The
coronation ceremony, with its anointing and hallowing of the king,
was regarded as quasi-sacramental in character, and it is not likely that
it would have been repeated.
On this Easter Day of 1201 Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Can-
terbury, performed the ceremony of placing the crowns on the heads
of John and Isabella, with five bishops and many barons in attend-
ance. The Archbishop entertained the King and Queen and their
court in a magnificent, not to say ostentatious, fashion that attracted
much comment.
While John was thus occupied in England, the members of the
house of Lusignan were taking energetic steps to avenge the insult
they had received from him. They were the most powerful family in
Poitou, and they set to work to stir up disaffection and open revolt
among the Poitevin nobles. They invaded the Norman border and
laid siege to a number of John's castles. In retaliation John ordered
the Seneschal of Normandy, Guarine de Clapion, to take the castle
of Driencourt, which belonged to Ralph of Issoudon, Count of Eu,
the brother of Hugh of Lusignan. Philip, ever eager to take advan-
tage of any opportunity to harass John and promote discord in his
dominions, hastened to help the Lusignan family, and with his assist-
ance the Poitevins soon captured all the castles they had been be-
sieging.
To meet this new threat to his continental possessions, on Ascen-
sion Day, at Tewkesbury, John issued orders to his earls and barons
and to all others who owed him military service to meet him at Ports-
-i 2 057 'The Loss of Normandy 109
mouth on Whitsunday with their horses and equipment ready for
service overseas. When they received these orders, the earls and bar-
ons assembled at Leicester, compared their grievances, and sent word
to John that they would not go with him unless he would first redress
their wrongs and restore their rights.
What these grievances were is not stated in the chronicles of the
time. There is no record as yet of any of the acts of gross injustice that
disfigured John's later years, and the taxes levied up to this time, al-
though heavy, were not unduly so. One may be justified in thinking
that the chief cause for complaint at this time was not specific abuses,
acts of injustice, or violations of the barons* rights, but rather that the
meeting at Leicester was a general protest by the baronage against
the continuing curtailment of their feudal privileges through the op-
eration under Hubert Walter and Geoffrey FitzPeter of the legal and
administrative system devised by Henry II.
The barons' ideal was a feudal system carried to its ultimate de-
velopment, in which each baron, in return for his military service
and the payment of the established dues, held a territory over which
he exercised complete control, even to the extent of trying all offenses
in his own courts. Such a system was not English in either its origins
or its practical effects, and it carried with it, as was demonstrated dur-
ing the reign of Stephen, the seeds of anarchy. Henry II curtailed the
irresponsible power of the barons by taking the administration of jus-
tice from their hands and their whims and putting it into the charge
of the Curia Regis and the itinerant justices, working under a uni-
form system of clearly defined law and through and with the help of
the freemen of the hundreds, die citizens of the towns, and the
knights of the shire.
Thus the administrative, the legal, and, through the Exchequer,
the financial machinery of the country, in its continued operation
through the reigns of Henry II and his two sons, tended constantly
to deprive the barons of their special privileges, to take from them
I I O [l20O
their absolute and irresponsible powers over their territories, to make
them and their followers amenable to the same code of laws by which
the whole country was governed, and, by substituting for the old
feudal services a regular system of taxation based on assessments made
by the sheriffs and by jury inquests, to remove their financial exemp-
tions. To this whittling away of their powers and special privileges
the barons did not take kindly, and their revolts and disaffections un-
der Henry II are ample evidence of the vigor with which they tried
to defend the old order. Their vigor was more than matched by the
energy and determination of the King, but neither he nor his succes-
sors could succeed in stamping it out entirely, till the virtual extinc-
tion of the old nobility in the Wars of the Roses enabled Henry VII
to institute a system of government bordering on tyranny, in which
the nobles had no effective part in the governing of the country.
In the meeting at Leicester it was no doubt the vague sense of be-
ing deprived of their old powers by the continued operation of the
ordinary mechanism of government that led the barons to present
their demands to John. His reply was quick and decisive; he threat-
ened to deprive them of their castles if they did not obey. He began
with William of Albini and demanded that he surrender his castle of
Belvoir. William offered to give John his son as a hostage to guaran-
tee his fidelity and thus made peace with him. When the other no-
bles saw that the King was in grim earnest, they capitulated without
further talk of their rights.
The army assembled at Portsmouth by the appointed day, May
13, 1 20 1. In a sudden change of plans, however, John allowed
many of the barons to go back home, after taking from each one the
money he had brought with him for his expenses. A number of ex-
planations for this change are possible. It may be that the force that
assembled was larger than John thought he would need for the quell-
ing of the disturbances on the Norman border and of the Lusignans
who had inspired diem. Again, it may be that he distrusted those
-12057 The Loss of Normandy in
whom he let return and preferred to hire mercenaries in the place of
the disaffected barons who had voiced their grievances at Leicester.
Finally, it may well have been one of those impulsive, inexplicable
acts that occurred throughout John's life. Be all this as it may, John
nevertheless sent two strong detachments of a hundred knights each
ahead of him into Normandy, one under the command of William
Marshal, Earl of Pembroke and Striguil, one of the most capable mil"
itary leaders of the time, and the other under Roger de Lacy, Con-
stable of Chester. John assigned a third force of a hundred knights to
his Chamberlain, Hubert de Burgh, and made him Keeper of the
Welsh Marches.
Before he left England, John made a gift of fifty marks to "Philip,
the son of King Richard," as the entry in the Chancellor's Roll for
the third year of the reign reads. This royal bastard was apparently
Richard's only child.
The same Roll provides the interesting information that "die men
of Gloucester render account of forty marks to have the King's good
will because they did not furnish him with his lampreys/' They paid
twenty marks and owed a further twenty. Gloucester was famous for
its lampreys, and John, like his great-grandfather Henry I, seems to
have been particularly fond of them. In 1207 he issued a letter fixing
the price of these delicacies:
THE KING ETC. to the Sheriff and Burgesses of Gloucester and
his other faithful subjects ETC. Let it be known that it is ordered
by our command and by the advice of our barons that at the time
when lampreys are first caught in the year, none shall be sold for
more than too shillings, until February, and thereafter they shall
be sold at a lower price. And therefore we prohibit you under
pain of forfeiture and of our amercement from doing anything
contrary to this. WITNESSED BY G. FITZPETER ETC. at Read-
ing on the 1 2th day of January in die 8th year of our reign.
112 /"J200-
After keeping die feast of Pentecost at Portsmouth, John and Isa-
bella sailed to Normandy. The Poitevin nobles would seem to have
been checked for the time being by William Marshal and Roger de
Lacy, for John soon went to meet Philip near Les Andelys for a
friendly conference. There were no witnesses to the agreement be-
tween the two Kings, but that it was an unusually amicable one is at-
tested by the fact that three days afterwards, on July I, John went to
Paris and was magnificently entertained by Philip, who moved out of
his own palace in order that John and his court might stay there.
From Paris John went to Chinon and made his headquarters there
for the struggle against the Poitevin nobles. Queen Berengaria, Rich-
ard's widow, came to John and asked for a settlement of her dowry.
Philip of Pictavia, Bishop of Durham, who had been present at her
marriage, was with the King at Chinon, and he testified as to what
the marriage settlement had been. In accordance with its terms, John
gave her die city of Bayeux, two castles in Anjou, and a yearly in-
come of a thousand marks.
Instead of subduing the rebellious barons of Poitou with the force
and energy that his father or his brother Richard would have dis-
played, John summoned them to appear before him and defend them-
selves and their causes by doing battle with his champions. He had se-
lected an especially tough and capable group of men to act as his
hired champions, so that it was no reflection on the valor of the Poite-
vin nobles when they declined to submit themselves to such an or-
deal. They claimed the right of being tried by a jury of their peers
but, since no jury of their fellow nobles would convict them, John in
turn declined to settle the matter in such a fashion, He had commit-
ted a gross violation of feudal honor when he had taken his vassal's
intended bride away from him, and the sympathies of his fellow no-
bles lay with Hugh of Lusignan and his party. After thus failing to
arrive at any solution of his difficulties in Poitou, John returned to
-1205] "The Loss of Normandy 113
Normandy, leaving "his beloved and faithful" Robert of Turnhara
as Seneschal of Poitou and Gascony.
Ralph of Issoudon, Count of En, the brother of the wronged and
insulted Hugh, formally "defied" the King, thus renouncing his al-
legiance to John and leaving his conscience clear to make war against
him, as the King reported in an open letter to Ralph's vassals:
THE KING ETC. to the men of Eu: Well do you know that
you were the men of Richard our brother of happy memory and
of the Lord Henry our father and of our ancestors, and that you
are and ought to be our faithful subjects. And because we know
well that you will ill abide any injury to us, we inform you that
Ralph of Issoudon, Count of Eu, defied us last Sunday, not
through our fault but through his fault and his pride. Wherefore
we command you and yours, as soon as you receive this letter, to
do to him and his all the harm you can. And henceforth do not
obey him or his in any matter, and keep your town well and
safely, and receive into your town those whom we shall send to
you to harm the aforesaid Count and his followers, knowing most
certainly that if you do this, as we well know that you will, we
will uphold and defend you as our faithful subjects, and we will
cause you fully to have those liberties that you ought to have
throughout our lands. Otherwise have no trust henceforth in us
or in any of ours in any place in which we or ours can harm you.
During this year Hugh Bardolph, a member of the Curia Regis and
an itinerant justiciar, went to St. Botolph's Fair with some of his fel*
low justices to hold the assize of cloth. This assize, established under
Richard, empowered the justices to seize all woolen cloth that was
less than two ells wide. The clothiers persuaded Hugh not to enforce
this regulation or the one establishing a uniform measure for corn,
ii4 [izoo-
and for this corruption they paid a large sum of money to the King.
This transaction prepared the way for much swindling in the sale of
cloth and of grain, two of the principal commodities of trade.
John spent the Christmas of 1201 at Argentan in Normandy.
During the holiday season, he made a graceful gesture to a lady who
shared his love of good food:
JOHN, by the grace of God, ETC., to all men ETC. Be it known
that we have given leave to Samson, the bearer of this present, to
go to Nantes and buy there some lampreys for the Countess of
Blois. And this letter is good for only one trip and no more. MY-
SELF AS WITNESS, at Bauge, on the izth day of January.
He also laid in a supply of wine against his return to England:
THE KING ETC. to all men ETC. Be it known that the six
score casks of wine that the bearers of this present are bringing to
England are for our royal use. Whence we command you to d-
low them to pass freely and without hindrance and to protect them
from all harm. MYSELF AS WITNESS, at Chinon, on the i8th
day of February.
During the following Lent, on March 25, 1202, he and Philip
had a conference at Le Goulet, in the course of which Philip de-
manded that John surrender all his continental possessions to Arthur.
John of course refused, and he asserted his feudal authority over Ar-
thur in the following letter:
THE KING ETC. to his beloved nephew Arthur ETC. We or*
der and summon you to come to us at Argentan during Easter
Week to render to us that which you are bound to render to your
liege lord. And we will gladly render to you that which we are
-I205J 77ze Low of Normandy 115
bound to render to our dear nephew and our liege man. MYSELF
AS WITNESS, at Andely, on the 27th day of March.
War broke out again. On the day after the conference, Philip
seized the castle of Boutavant and leveled it to the ground, and he
captured a number of towns on the Norman border. On July 8 he
laid siege to Radepont, but after eight days John came with a superior
force and drove him away. Philip went next to Gournay, which he
captured by the expedient of breaching the dam that retained the
lake above the town. When the town was thus flooded the garrison
fled, and Philip marched in and took possession without any oppo"
sition.
Having thus secured the border, Philip returned to Paris and sent
Arthur into the field with two hundred knights. As they were march"
ing along with a fine braying of trumpets, they learned that Queen
Eleanor, Arthur's grandmother, was in the castle of Mirebeau with a
small company of soldiers. Arthur, who had embarked on the con"
quest of Poitou, laid siege to the castle, and all the nobles of Poitou,
led by John's chief enemy, Hugh of Lusignan, came to lend Arthur
their help in capturing their Duchess. They succeeded in breaking
through the outer walls, and Eleanor and her small force fought val*
iantly from one of the towers.
The aged Queen sent word of her predicament on July 30 to
John, who was then at Le Mans. He hastily collected a large force
and by riding night and day reached Mirebeau on August i . The
besiegers went out to meet him, but John and his force attacked with
such energy that they put the enemy to flight. Arthur's army dashed
back to the castle for shelter, but John's knights were pursuing with
such speed that they reached the castle at the same time. John rescued
his mother and captured Arthur, Hugh of Lusignan, two hundred
French knights, and all the knights of Poitou. He loaded his prisoners
with fetters and shackles and had them ignominiously hauled away in
1 1 6 [1200-
wagons. He treated them not as honorable prisoners of war but as
rebellious knights who had made war against their liege lord, and
who as such deserved all the harshness with which they were treated.
He sent them off to prison, some in Normandy and some in Eng-
land. Savaric de Mauleon and twenty-five others were sent to Corfe
Castle, where most of them died of starvation. Savaric, however,
made his guards drunk and escaped. He later made his peace with
John and returned to France, where John made him Seneschal of
Poitou early in 1206. John kept Arthur under close custody at
Falaise.
While John was thus occupied at Mirebeau, Philip laid siege to
the castle of Arques, which Richard had acquired from him in 1 1 96.
The garrison held out stoutly against a greatly superior force for a
fortnight. When he learned of Arthur's defeat and capture, Philip
hastily lifted the siege and fled to Paris, burning and plundering the
Norman countryside as he retreated.
Later in the year John came to Falaise and ordered Arthur brought
before him. He tried to induce his nephew to separate himself from
Philip and return to the allegiance he had pledged at Vernon on
June 23, 1 200, immediately after Blanche's marriage to Louis, but
Arthur answered in an insolent and threatening manner and de-
manded that John surrender all his continental possessions to him.
He swore that unless he gave these territories to him John "should
never enjoy peace for any length of time." John had the obstinate lad
removed to Rouen, to be kept under close guard in die new tower
there.
"Shortly afterwards the said Arthur suddenly disappeared/* re-
cords Roger of Hoveden. Exactly what happened to Arthur after his
removal to Rouen is not known with certainty. The writer of the
Annals of Margam, a contemporary chronicle, states categorically
that on April 3, 1 203 John, in a drunken rage, killed Arthur with a
huge stone and threw his body into the Seine. Ralph, Abbot of Cog-
I205J T/ze Loss of Normandy 117
geshall, writing shortly after John's death, says that John ordered Hu-
bert de Burgh to blind and otherwise mutilate Arthur so that he
would be incapable of making any more trouble. Hubert, according
to Abbot Ralph, spared Arthur but told John that he had carried out
his orders. This account was embodied by Holinshed in his Chroni-
cles and thus furnished the basis for the touching scene in Shake"
speare's play, but it does not explain how Arthur met his death.
Whether or not John killed Arthur with his own hands, it is at
any rate certain that Arthur died about this time and that John was
responsible for his death. John would have been Justified, according
to feudal law, in putting Arthur to death after a legal process as a
sworn vassal who had made war against his lord. Such a sentence
would have been of extreme severity, but it would not have appalled
and horrified his contemporaries nearly so much as did the suspicion
that John had done the deed with his own hands and without any
sort of a trial. This suspicion spread quickly throughout England and
France, and because of it some of John's subjects began to feel a deep
hatred for him.
In this year, Geoffrey FitzPeter, the Chief Justiciar, established a
legal assize of bread that embodied the prevailing idea of the just
price. According to the ethics of die time, merchants were not justi-
fied in charging all that the traffic would bear or in taking advantage
of local or temporary shortages in order to raise their prices. Each ar-
tide had its just price, which was arrived at by computing the cost
of the materials and the labor involved and by adding to it a reason-
able sum for the profit of the merchant. Thus, in establishing the
price of bread, the Chief Justiciar took into account the wages of
the baker's servants and boys, the salt, the yeast, the candle to light the
bakery, the wood to heat the oven, and the baker's profit. Then he
fixed a sliding scale according to which die price of bread varied in
proportion to the cost of corn.
John had now been absent from England for well over a year, and
1 1 8 [1200-
the Chief Justiciar, for whom John had little affection but whose
great administrative abilities and experience made him the obvious
man for the post, seems to have acted as though he were independent
of the King. Geoffrey and the Archbishop of Canterbury got them-
selves involved in a long-drawn-out dispute over the custody of
Windsor Castle, which John had awarded to the Archbishop but
which the Chief Justiciar refused to surrender to him. At last John
sent his Justiciar a sharply worded rebuke:
THE KING ETC. to Geoffrey FitzPeter ETC. You well review*
her, we believe, how we ordered you by our word when you
were in Normandy and how we afterwards commanded you by
our letters to give our venerable Father in Christ, the Lord Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, possession of the Castle of Windsor with
its defences and forest, and how we ordered John FitzHugh by
our letters patent to surrender it to him, and he [John] replied to
our letters that he would not surrender it to him until he had first
come before us. Whence we are greatly astonished that he did
not surrender it to him at our order, nor did he come to us after"
wards, nor did you give him possession of it as we ordered you.
And therefore we firmly repeat our command to you, that as
soon as you see this letter you give him possession of the castle
with its defences and forest without delay, for it is our will that he
have it and we have the power to accomplish this. WITNESS
MYSELF at Cailly, on the nth day of June.
John kept the Christmas of 1 202 at Caen in Normandy in a most
carefree manner. The holidays were given over to sumptuous feasts
with his Queen and court, and the royal couple stayed in bed rill
dinner-time, around noon, every day*
Philip, meanwhile, was preparing for renewed assaults on Nor-
mandy. Shortly after Easter he took to the field again and attacked
-12057 Tfo Loss of Normandy 119
John's castles along the Norman border. The smaller ones he demol"
ished, but the larger castles he preserved and stocked to serve as ad'
vance bases for further operations.
Messenger after messenger came to John to report that Philip was
seizing his castles and carrying off the governors shamefully bound to
his horses* tails, and, in short, proceeding through Normandy unop-
posed. John lay idle all the while at Rouen, feasting, drinking, en-
tertaining Isabella, and displaying no concern over the threat to his
power. To all who objected to his inaction or reported fresh acquisi-
tions by Philip, John languidly replied: "Let him do so; whatever he
takes I shall regain in a single day/*
Such of John's English nobles as were in Normandy with him
were so disgusted and baffled by his foolish words and frivolous con-
duct that they asked permission to return to England to look after
their estates, pretending that they would come back to him when he
should feel the need for their services. John readily granted the per-
mission, and thus he was left in Normandy with only a few soldiers.
Seeing that no help was forthcoming from the King, the men he
had placed in charge of his castles began to surrender them to Philip
without offering any resistance, and as the news spread of John's
strange apathy to his losses and of his cheerful demeanor as one by
one his castles fell into Philip's hands, men began to say that Isa-
bella had infatuated him by sorcery or witchcraft. The King did in-
deed seem bewitched by this fifteen'year'old girl from whom he ap-
parently could not be parted for a day.
Hugh de Gournaye surrendered the castle of Montford to Philip,
admitted the French soldiers into it by night, and, renouncing his al-
legiance to John, adhered to Philip. Robert FitzWalter and Sayer
de Quincy had been made joint governors of the castle of Vaudreuil,
an important fortification near the mouth of the Eure, and they too
delivered up the castle to Philip without the slightest show of resist-
ance. Even Philip was so disgusted by their cowardice that he had
I2O [l20O-
them put in chains and kept in close confinement at Compiegne till
they were redeemed for a ransom of five thousand marks.
Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester, alone of John's lieutenants
showed the energy and courage in which his master was so notably
lacking. He had been given command of the great fortress of CMteau-
Gaillard, which Richard had built on the Rock of Andelys to defend
the lower valley of the Seine and the approaches to Rouen. Richard
embodied in this castle some novel ideas of military architecture he
had acquired in the Holy Land, and it was considered the strongest
fortress in the country. Part of this strength it owed to its situation, for
it was built on a rock whose perpendicular sides were continued in the
walls and to which access could be had only by a narrow and easily
defended bridge of land, and part to the admirable construction of
the walls, of a strength and thickness not seen before. Battering rams
and scaling ladders could not be brought to bear against it, and stone-
throwers and other engines of war could not make the smallest breach
in the walls. All that Philip could do was to blockade the gallant and
faithful Constable of Chester and his company and prevent them
from getting fresh supplies.
Some of the common soldiers, at any rate, were not afraid to fol-
low Roger's example and fight for their King, as the following letter
shows:
THE KING ETC. to all men ETC. Be it known that Robert,
the son of Robert the Mercer, not because of any felony on his
fart but in our service at Chateau Neuf sur Sort, lost his ear. And
we tell you this so that you may know it. MYSELF AS WITNESS,
at Montfort, on the 2 3rd day of July.
At last the defection of many of his Norman nobles, who, seeing
that they could hope for no help or protection from him, deserted
him, roused John to action. He had few men at his command, for he
-12057 The Loss of Normandy izi
had allowed his English knights to return to England and his Norman
nobles to leave his service, and his money had been exhausted in
feasting and indolence. He took ship and landed at Portsmouth on
December 6, 1203. When he confronted his earls and barons, he
accused them of having deserted him in the midst of his enemies and
demanded from them a seventh of all their movable property. Geof-
frey FitzPeter collected this tax from the lay barons, and Hubert
Walter commanded the clerics that were tenants-in-chief of the
Crown to pay it. The administrative machinery of the Exchequer
functioned smoothly and efficiently, so that no one escaped paying
the tax.
Philip, when he learned that John had left Normandy, went all
over the district, telling the citizens and the governors of the castles
and other administrative officers that John had deserted them. Philip
said that since he was the overlord of the duchy it reverted to him
when John thus abandoned it, and he threatened that if they did not
submit peacefully to him he would take the country by force and
hang or flay alive all who resisted him. No French king had asserted
his authority in Normandy since Charles the Simple had ceded the
land to Rollo in 91 1, and there was much discussion before a com-
promise was reached. A truce was declared, to last for a year, and
the Norman nobles gave hostages to Philip. They agreed that if by
the end of the year John did not assist them and re-establish his sov-
ereignty they would acknowledge Philip as their lord.
Meanwhile, John kept the Christmas of 1203 at Canterbury as
the guest of the Archbishop.
Innocent III in this year canonized Wulfstan, Bishop of Worces-
ter, who at his death in 1095 was the last of the Anglo-Saxon bish-
ops. The decree of canonization was issued through the efforts of
Mauger, one of Wulfstans successors, who stood high in the Pope's
favor. He was of illegitimate birth, and when he was elected Bishop
in August 1199 Innocent annulled the election on that ground.
izz [1200-
Mauger went to Rome to plead his cause in person, and the Pope
was so impressed by him that he dispensed him from the impediment
and consecrated him with his own hands. When Mauger returned to
England, he caused the remains of Bishop Wulfstan to be reverently
replaced in his cathedral. The cathedral was destroyed by fire on
April 17, 120 z. In order to stimulate devotion and to raise funds for
the rebuilding, Mauger requested the canonization of Wulfstan and
submitted instances of the many miracles that had occurred at his
tomb since the reburial.
Innocent also in this year sent a long letter to John, complaining of
his treatment of the Church. He accused the King of interfering with
the courts Christian, of applying the revenues of the Church to his
own uses, of attempting to prevent the election of bishops to vacant
sees or at least of postponing indefinitely the elections, which were
supposed to take place not later than three months after the see be"
came vacant, so that he might enjoy the revenues of the vacant sees,
and of forcing the electors to choose in accordance with his own arbi-
trary decisions. Specifically, the Pope accused John of having ex-
pelled the Bishop of Limoges from his see, of having appropriated
its revenues, and of having oppressed and insulted the Bishop of
Poitiers and almost completely destroyed his church and diocese.
John summoned the Great Council to meet at Oxford on January
z, i Z04, and he asked and received a grant of two and a half marks
on each knight's fee for the prosecution of the war in Normandy.
This tax, like the seventh levied the month before, applied to bishops
and abbots as well as to lay barons.
Philip's forces had meanwhile been battering away at Chateau-
Gaillard for almost a year without having reduced it. At last, on
March 6, 1204, when all their supplies were exhausted and they
were faced with starvation, Roger de Lacy and his men armed them-
selves and stormed forth in a desperate attack on their besiegers, pre-
ferring a speedy and glorious end in battle to slow death from hunger.
-12057 The Loss of Normandy 123
After a fierce fight in which they succeeded in killing many of the
French, they were with difficulty captured and made prisoners. To
the credit of Philip's chivalric feelings, which were generally pretty
well in abeyance, he made Roger a prisoner on parole, out of admi-
ration for his courage and ability. His ransom was set at a thousand
marks, and John helped raise the sum.
Shortly after this, on April i, 1204, Queen Eleanor died. She
had lived into her eighties, a fabulous age for those times, and had
been the wife of two kings and the mother of two kings. She had been
to the Holy Land as a crusader; she had ruled her great Duchy of
Aquitaine; she had stirred up a revolt of her sons against their father,
and she had suffered long in prison for it. Then, at an age when most
women would be content to sit by the fire, she had emerged from
prison full of life and energy and had ruled as Queen of England for
the ten years of Richard's reign. She had traveled into Navarre in
quest of a daughter'in'law, into Germany in search of her son, and
into Castile to fetch her granddaughter. She was buried at Font"
evrault beside the husband she had hated and the son she had most
dearly loved.
A fortnight after her death, John made a handsome gesture in
memory of her:
THE KING ETC. to the Sheriff of Dorset ETC. Tow are in-
formed that for the love of Qod and for the health of the soul of
our very dear mother who has died, we have set free and quit
claim, on the Wednesday next after Palm Sunday, that is, on the
i4th day of April, in the $th year of our reign, all prisoners in-
carcerated for whatever cause they were detained, whether for
murder or felony or theft or for forest offences or for any other of-
fences whatever, except the prisoners captured in our war and ex-
cept those whom we sent from Normandy to England to be im-
prisoned or kept in custody, and except our Jewish prisoners.
124 [l200~
And therefore we order you that as soon as you see this letter you
set free all the aforesaid prisoners that have been incarcerated or
detained except the aforesaid ones. So do this that those prisoners
who are to be set free find in the full county court a pledge that
henceforth they will live as faithful subjects, and thus they may
remain in our land. Otherwise, make them abjure our land before
the full county court so that they acknowledge their guilt and
that they go out from our land within forty days after the abjura-
tion. Make those, however, who were taken for homicide find a
pledge in the same county court that they will stand for their right
or that they will make peace with the parents. If they will not or
cannot do this, make them, like the others, abjure our land and
go out from our land within the aforesaid period, unless they want
to return to prison and stand for their right Those who are ac-
cused of forest offences and detained in our prison we wish to be
entirely set free, except those who were caught with venison and
convicted of having killed a deer. Concerning these, we will that
they find a pledge that henceforth they will commit no offence in
our forest. If they will not or cannot find a pledge, let them abjure
our land like the aforesaid offenders who have fallen into our
mercy and let them go out of our land within the aforesaid period.
MYSELF AS WITNESS, at Freemantle, on the i5th day of April,
When a member of his household was knighted during this sum-
mer, John gave him rich gifts:
THE KING ETC. to the Sheriff of Southampton: GREETING.
We order you to give Thomas Esturmy, our valet, a scarlet robe
with a fine linen cloak and another robe of green or brown, and
a saddle, and a pair of reins, and a rain<cloak, and a couch, and a
pair of linen sheets, for he is to be made a Knight. And what you
-12057 The Loss of Normandy i z 5
spend for these things will be accounted to you at the Treasury.
MYSELF AS WITNESS, at Bristol, on the i/th day of July.
The fall of Chateau-Gaillard left the way to Rouen open to Philip,
and the keepers of the Norman castles in great alarm sent messengers
to John to explain their perilous situation to him and to warn him
that the end of the year's truce was drawing near, at which time they
would have either to surrender the castles to Philip or forfeit the hos*
tages they had given him. John replied that they were to expect no
help from him, but that each one must do what seemed best to him.
The Norman nobles interpreted this as a tacit renunciation by John
of the Duchy of Normandy and as freeing them from the allegiance
they had sworn to him, since the feudal bond included not only the
obligation of the vassal to serve his lord but also the duty of the lord
to defend his vassal
Without meeting any resistance, Philip took possession of the
whole of Normandy, Touraine, Anjou, and Poitou except for the
castles of Rochelle, Thouars, and Niort. John received the news of
these shameful and staggering losses with inexplicable equanimity; of
all the great continental possessions that he had inherited, only his
mother's portion, shorn of most of Poitou, remained to him. Roger of
Wendover tells how John bore his losses: "When this was told to
the English King, he was enjoying all the pleasures of life with his
queen, in whose company he believed that he possessed everything
he could desire; moreover, he felt confidence in the immensity of the
wealth he had collected, as if by that alone he could regain the terri-
tory he had lost/*
Normandy and England had been united under the same crown
for a hundred and thirtyeight years. The free intercourse between
the two countries was now cut off, with the result that the upper
classes became more thoroughly English in character and feeling.
126 [1200-
From the English point of view, the loss of Normandy was a good
thing. The English had never derived any profit from the duchy; on
the contrary, the King's efforts to keep it had meant a constant drain
of men and treasure that would better have been employed at home.
Many nobles had estates in both countries; now a division was neces-
sary. Some houses divided their holdings between two branches; oth-
ers who had the greater part of their land in one of the two countries
chose to forfeit the smaller estates in the other. John made an excep-
tion in the case of William Marshal and allowed him to do homage
to Philip for his lands in Normandy, although that meant that Wil-
liam could not thenceforth bear arms against Philip.
"I know you are so loyal/* John said to him, "that nothing could
turn your heart from me. Do homage to him, then, for the more you
have the better you will be able to serve me/*
John spent die Christmas of 1 204 at Tewkesbury. This was a
winter of exceptional severity, and the ground was frozen so hard
that all agricultural operations were suspended from January 14 till
March 22. This resulted in a scanty harvest. The price of corn in-
creased greatly, and there was much misery in the land. The King or-
dered Hugh Neville to feed a hundred poor men at Marlborough
and directed the Barons of the Exchequer to reimburse him.
John's last decisive military operation had been the relief of Mire-
beau, on August i, 1202. After more than two years of inexplicable
lethargy, he suddenly roused himself to action and set about raising
an army. On April 3, 1205 he ordered all the sheriffs to proclaim
the summons throughout their bailiwicks. All the knights of Eng-
land were to be divided into groups of ten, of whom one would serve
"in the defence of our realm for as long as necessary/' and the other
nine were to see that he was well provided with horses and arms and
two shillings a day for his expenses. If any knight failed to comply
with these orders, he and his heirs were to be deprived of all land
forever, beyond any possibility of regaining it.
-I2O5J The Loss of Normandy 127
John brought together a great fleet and army at Portsmouth at
Whitsuntide and ordered his barons to join him there. Hubert Wal-
ter and many others of his council tried to dissuade him from this ex-
pedition, probably because they thought that it was now too late to
regain the territories in which Philip was well entrenched. It may
be, too, that the mysterious degeneration of the King's character dur-
ing these years, when he was sunk in a listless slothfulness quite for-
eign to the wild energy and turbulent restlessness that marked both
his father and his brother Richard and that reappeared in John later
in his life, led them to distrust him and to doubt both his determina-
tion and his ability to drive Philip out of his acquisitions.
William Marshal also tried to dissuade John, and this led to a pain-
ful scene between them. John was sitting on the shore at Portsmouth
with his entourage, looking out to sea. He summoned William Mar-
shal to him and in the presence of his court accused him of having
made an alliance against him with the King of France.
William, wounded to the quick, replied that he had made no al-
liance against John, and that what he had done, in doing homage to
Philip for the lands he held of him, had been done with John's
permission.
John proposed that the barons judge the matter, and William, in
great grief, took off his cap and repeated solemnly that he had had
John's permission to do homage to Philip.
"I deny that!" John cried. "But I shall be patient with you. You
shall come with me to Poitou to fight the King of France, to whom
you did homage, and help me conquer my inheritance."
William protested: "It would be an evil thing, since I am his man,
for me to fight against him."
"Hear, my lords," John cried in triumph, 'Tie cannot deny this.
Now you can see the work that is being so vilely disclosed. He says
that he is the King's man and that he will not go with me!"
William denied again that he was being false to John by observ-
i z 8 [izoo-
ing his sworn obligations to Philip, and he offered to prove it by
combat.
"By God's teeth/ 3 John swore, "that is nothing! I appeal to the
judgment of my barons/*
William Marshal raised his head and put his finger to his fore*
head. "Look at me, my lords, for by the faith I bear you I am this
day an example and a mirror for all of you. Pay good heed to the
King: what he is trying now to do to me, he will do to all of you, if
he gets the upper hand."
John in great anger demanded again the judgment of the barons.
They looked at each other and fell back; no one was willing to speak
a word against William Marshal.
Finally Baldwin of Bethune, Earl of Aumale, said: "It is not for
us to judge in court a knight of the Marshal's worth. In all this army
there is no man rash enough to assert that William Marshal has been
false to the King/'
Seeing that his barons were all on the side of William Marshal,
John arose and went to his dinner without further words. Later he dis-
missed the host, and in a bitter rage he embarked with a small com-
pany on July 1 5 and put to sea with all sails spread, as though he in-
tended to defeat Philip alone and single-handed.
He landed on the thkd day at Wareham, by which time his anger
had cooled somewhat. He immediately accused the barons of having
refused to accompany him to the Continent to recover his lost terri-
tories, and on these grounds he exacted heavy fines from them.
The castle of Chinon had been surrendered to Philip on June 2,3,
and he made it his headquarters for bringing the whole of Poitou to
submission.
CHAPTER. VIIJ
THE CANTERBURY
ELECTIONS
1205-1207
r]$rUBERT WALTER, Archbishop of Canter-
I II k ur y> got along unusually well with the monks of Christ
L J$L Church in Canterbury. He was, of course, their titular ab'
bot, and he greatly enjoyed visiting them when his many duties as
Primate and Chancellor allowed him a little leisure. He was enjoy
ing such a visit with them early in July 1205, when he was called
upon to settle a quarrel that had arisen between Gilbert de Glanville,
Bishop of Rochester, and his monks. Reluctantly, Hubert left his
friends, promising to come back again and stay with them longer
than usual. He set out for Boxley Abbey, but on July 10 he fell sick
of a fever and a carbuncle and turned aside to Teynham. He died
there on July 13. Ralph of Coggeshall says that his happy death was
a fitting close to a good life. He was an energetic and courageous
man, deeply versed in the law, and one of the best administrators of
his time. That England enjoyed a capable and tranquil government
130
during the early years of John's reign was in large measure due to
the firmness and probity of Hubert Walter, assisted by the experi-
ence and legal knowledge of Geoffrey FitzPeter,
John gave way to indecent joy when he learned of the death of
one of the two men who had been able to exercise a restraining in-
fluence on him in his governing of the kingdom. "Now for the first
time am I truly King of England/' he declared.
He hurried to Canterbury on July 1 5 and induced the prior and
the monks to promise him that they would wait till after St. An-
drew's Day, November 30, before doing anything about the election
of a new archbishop. Hubert Walter had left the costly and elaborate
furnishings of his chapel to the Cathedral, and John expressed a wish
to see them. He was so taken with their beauty that he had them
carried to Winchester, where he presented them to the Bishop-elect
of that city, Peter des Roches, one of his favorites.
The election of the new archbishop was a matter of the greatest
importance, for the Archbishop of Canterbury was not only Primate
of All England but also by long custom one of the King's closest ad-
visors. One of the characteristics of the Church in England was that
many of its episcopal sees were monastic in origin. The abbot of the
monastery was also bishop of the diocese, and the monks of the mon-
astery, or the minster-men, to use the Old English term, formed the
chapter of the cathedral, their conventual church. Canterbury was
one of these foundations, and the monks of Christ Church Priory
had by long custom the right of electing the archbishop j who was
also their abbot.
Since, however, the Archbishop of Canterbury was also Metro-
politan of the dioceses south of the Trent, the bishops of the South-
ern Province had long claimed the right of assisting in the election.
Finally, inasmuch as the archbishop was one of the greatest tenants-
in-chief of the Crown, the holder of a great temporal barony, the
leader of the influential body of bishops, and entitled to a prominent
-120/7 Tfee Canterbury Elections 131
place in the king's councils, the king also was interested in the elec-
tion of a man who held such great power in the realm. When the
king was strong and the minster-men were weak, the king nominated
the man of his choice and the monks forthwith elected him. The ideal
situation, of course, occurred when the minster-men, the bishops, and
the king could all unite in choosing the same man; such a situation,
however, rarely presented itself, and the election was usually marked
by a great deal of friction among the interested parties.
Before Hubert Walter had even been buried, a number of the
younger monks, secretly and by night, without asking the King's per-
mission to proceed with the election and in violation of their prom-
ise to him, chose one of their number, the Sub-Prior Reginald, as
their Abbot and Archbishop. They immediately chanted the Te
Deum, vested him at the high altar, and seated him on the Arch-
bishop's throne. On that same night Reginald took an oath not to
mention his election to anyone till he reached Rome, and, taking
some of the monks with him, set out immediately, with the hope that
the whole matter might be kept secret, above all from John, till the
Pope should have confirmed the election.
No sooner had Reginald landed in Flanders, however, than he
began to boast that he was the Archbishop'elect of Canterbury, on
his way to Rome to receive the pallium from the Pope. To confirm
his boasts, he displayed the letters from the minster-men, reporting
his election and begging for its confirmation. When he reached
Rome, he presented his letters to the Pope and asked for the Apos-
tolic blessing. The letters must have raised doubts in the highly
trained legal mind of Innocent III. Having been hastily written by a
group of younger men, they probably had such deficiencies in the
customary forms that a Pope who was accustomed to counting the
dots in the papal seal to make sure that all one hundred and seventy-
seven were there would have no difficulty in realizing that there was
something wrong with the election, Innocent, therefore, instead of
*32 /"J205-
giving Reginald the immediate confirmation that he apparently ex-
pected, told him that he would take time to consider the matter and
assure himself of the validity of the election.
The news of Reginald's boasting in the meantime reached Eng-
land and threw the minster-men of Canterbury into a panic. They
hastily sent a deputation to John to repudiate their loose-tongued and
indiscreet Sub-Prior and to beg the King's permission to proceed
with the election of their archbishop. This permission John gra-
ciously granted, and he hinted to them that John Grey, Bishop of
Norwich, was joined to him in great friendship and knew all his se-
crets. The monks, he let it be known, would be doing a great service
both to their king and to their country, as well as to the Church and
the Province of Canterbury, if they would elect John Grey as their
archbishop, and John asked them to present his request to the com-
munity. He sent some clerics of his household to Canterbury with
the returning deputation to make known his views and to promise
many honors to the monastery if they did as he requested.
When the monks returned to Canterbury, they told the com-
munity of their interview with the King. John himself came to Can-
terbury for the election, and on December 1 1 the whole chapter
unanimously chose John Grey, The Archbishop-elect was a native
of Norfolk, of the same sturdy East Anglian breed that had produced
Ranulf de Glanville and Hubert Walter. He had been consecrated
Bishop of Norwich on September 24, 1 200. He was a man of great
learning, well versed in administrative matters, and endowed with a
pleasant and agreeable disposition that made his company particu-
larly welcome to the King. At the time of his election he was in Not-
tingham looking after the King's affairs, probably as an itinerant
justiciar.
On the day of the election, John sent a letter to the Pope that was
intended to remove any doubts from Innocent's mind as to the legal-
ity of the proceedings, He informed the Pope that after Hubert
-I207J The Canterbury Elections 133
Walter's death both the bishops of the Province and the monks of
Canterbury had lodged appeals before him, affirming their respective
rights to elect the archbishop. The bishops, however, fearing that
an involved dispute might leave the see vacant for a long time, with
great harm to the Church and the realm, renounced their appeal in
his presence on St. Nicholas's Day, December 6.
"We therefore/* John continued, "went to Canterbury on the fol-
lowing Sunday/ 3 (December n) "where the Lord John, Bishop
of Norwich, with our consent was elected Archbishop of Canterbury
by the Prior and Convent of Christchurch in Canterbury. We there"
fore affirm by this our letter patent that from the death of the afore"
said Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, until this day the aforesaid
bishops have made no election of an archbishop with our knowledge
or consent/*
Around Christmas, 1205, John sent a deputation made up of
Master Honorius, Archdeacon of Richmond, Master Columbus,
Master Geoffrey of Dereham, and six monks of Canterbury, to Rome
to inform the Pope of the election of John Grey and to secure his
confirmation. Before the delegation left, John, on December 20,
wrote to all the bishops of the Province, requesting them to affix their
seals, as the Bishop of London had already done, to the letter they
were bearing to the Roman Curia. John gave these messengers large
sums of money to be distributed as gifts to members of the papal court
to make sure that his friend was confirmed.
At the same time, the suffragan bishops of the Southern Province,
who had had no part in either election, sent agents to complain to
the Pope that they had been grossly wronged by the minster'tnen,
who had presumed to elect the archbishop without their assistance.
They sent witnesses and documents to prove that in three cases in
the past they had had a share in the election, and they made no men"
tion of the renunciation that John had reported in his letter.
Innocent now presumably had three separate delegations before
i 3 4 [1205-
him: Reginald and his companions, to ask the confirmation of the
Sub-Prior; the monks sent by John, to request the confirmation of
John Grey; and the deputation from the bishops, to protest both
elections. After hearing all of them and examining the documents
and the witnesses, the Pope declared that he would deliver his deci-
sion on December 21 of die following year and ordered those present
to return at the appointed time to receive his pronouncement.
Why Innocent should have introduced almost a year's delay into
the matter is not clear. No intricate or knotty problems of canon law
were involved. All the witnesses, with the relevant documents, were
at hand, and it was not a question of summoning new witnesses from
England. The Papal Curia, to be sure, was a busy place, but it is not
likely that any of the cases before it could outweigh in gravity and
importance the matter of the election of the Archbishop of Canter-
bury. The Pope may have hoped that a long delay might give heated
tempers an opportunity to cool, but if such was the case he showed
himself a poor judge of men and of English tempers.
After keeping the Christmas of 1205 at Oxford, John turned his
thoughts once more to France. The projected expedition of 1205
had been abandoned largely because of the opposition of Hubert
Walter and William Marshal. Now that his Chancellor was out of
the way, John revived his plans for an attempt at regaining some of
his continental territories.
In preparation for his return to Poitou, John made an effort to re-
call his Poitevin barons to his allegiance:
THE KING, to all the barons and knights of Poitou: GREET-
INGS. Be it known to you that if you return to our fealty and
service, we will dismiss all ill will that we have conceived against
you and pardon you wholly, in such a way that henceforth we
will do neither evil nor harm to you on account of any fault that
you have committed against us up to this time. And we will and
-12077 The Canterbury Elections 135
concede that you hold of us surely and in peace all lands and
tenements that you held whether by gift of King Henry our
father or of King Richard our brother. MYSELF AS WITNESS,
at Beer-Regis, on the 5th day of January, the /th year of our
reign.
John assembled a large army at Portsmouth and sailed on June 25,
1206, landing at La Rochelle on July 9. He was greeted with great
enthusiasm, and the inhabitants flocked to him with promises of
money and help. Philip's rule had evidently not been popular.
John subdued the region around La Rochelle and then marched
southeast to Montauban, where a number of rebellious Poitevin
barons were assembled. John's forces made breaches in the walls
with their stone-throwers, and the English soldiers, "who/* says
Roger of Wendover, "were greatly renowned in that sort of war-
fare, scaled the walls and fought hand-to-hand with the enemy/*
John captured the castle in a fortnight, and this was a source of great
pride to him and his soldiers, for no less a person than Charlemagne
had laid siege to this same castle for seven years without success.
Montauban surrendered on August i, 1206, and John then
turned to the northern part of Poitou, where Philip had established
his outposts. Some of the Poitevin nobles joined John, but when
Philip and his forces drew near, again neither side was willing to
fight the matter out. It was one thing for John to overcome some of
the rebellious barons and reduce the fortresses in which they had
taken refuge, but it was quite another thing to meet the King of
France in a pitched battle.
Pitched battles in the open were rare at this time, although it was
one of almost constant warfare. The opposing forces bent all their
efforts towards capturing castles. A modern and well-stocked castle
like CMteau-Gaillard was almost completely impregnable against
the offensive tactics of an enemy as long as its provisions held out. He
i 3 6 [1205-
might batter away indefinitely at its stout stone walls with battering
rams without making an impression on them. He might hurl huge
boulders against it with his stone-throwers and catapults, and if the
walls were thick enough they would suffer little damage. A rain of
arrows and stones into the courtyard would harm only those rash
enough to be caught unprotected in the open. At best, a skilled archer
could hope to pick off now and then an unwary foe who showed
himself at the narrow embrasures of the parapet.
The attackers might try to scale the walls with ladders, after they
had first crossed the moat, but such an attempt was usually suicidal,
unless, as was apparently the case at Montauban, they had a great
advantage of numbers and could attack from several points at the
same time. They might try to undermine the walls by digging a tun-
nel from a protected place, sinking it under the weakest part of the
walls and shoring it up with timbers as they proceeded. Then they
would set fire to the timbers and, when they were burned through,
the walls would collapse, if all went well. A well'built castle, how-
ever, would rest on the solid rock or have its foundations so deeply
laid that mining would be impossible.
As a last desperate resort the attackers might build a tower as high
as the castle walls, mounted on wheels and covered with green hides
to make it fireproof, fill in the moat, roll the tower across the moat
and up against the walls, mount by ladders inside the tower, and
thus come to grips with the defenders. All this called for a great deal
of preparation and work, and it was costly of the lives of the attackers.
Richard used this daring expedient in the Holy Land, but neither
John nor Philip was desperate enough to attempt it in their chronic
warfare.
The defenders, on the other hand, if their walls were stout and
their provisions ample, could let the attackers baiter away to their
hearts* content, picking them off with arrows, stones, and molten lead
-i ao/J The Canterbury Elections 137
whenever they were rash enough to come within range. The older
and weaker structures, such as the one at Montauban presumably
was, could eventually be battered into submission. Finally, as was
the case with many of John's Norman castles in 1205, the treachery
of the defenders themselves might lead to their surrender.
Once the castle was captured, the garrison, or such members of it
as were of sufficient rank and fortune, would be held for ransom.
What happened to the ordinary foot soldiers and men-at-arms no one
bothered to record. Indeed, it was a misfortune both for the victim
himself and for the victorious attackers if a defending knight were
killed, for then the knight lost his life and the victor lost his ransom.
Consequently, most of the warfare of these times was not a bloody
affair. The chief sufferers were the wretched townspeople, if the
castle were surrounded by a town, and the miserable peasants of
the adjoining countryside. Houses were demolished or burned,
growing crops trampled under, vines and fruit trees hacked down,
and the country laid bare.
It is difficult to detect any strategy underlying this apparently ran*
dom attacking, defending, and seizing of castles. Each side remained
in a state of watchfulness, ready to seize a castle whenever it had a
momentary advantage. Eventually, of course, if one side seized a suf"
ficient number of castles, as Philip did in Normandy, it would gain
possession of the territory the castles dominated. Few of the cam-
paigns of this time, however, show any systematic attempt to pene'
trate into enemy territory according to a prepared plan, and nothing
makes drearier reading, even if one follows them on a map, than the
lists of castles attacked, defended, and captured, with which the
chronicles of the time abound.
On November i the two Kings agreed to a truce for two years,
with the border to be left as it was, along the northern confines of
Poitou.
i 3 8
Before he left Poitou, John had his Queen recognized as Countess
of Angouleme, as the following letter to the knights and free men
of that County shows:
WE command you to swear an oath of fealty to your lady, the
Quern, our wife, in the presence of our beloved and faithful
Seneschal, Savaric de Mauleon, that you will bear fealty to her
as your liege lady against all mortal men, saving your fealty to us
while we are alive, and that you will deliver up no city or castle
or fortified place to anyone except to her or at her command, if
we should die. MYSELF AS WITNESS, at La Rochelle, on the
4th day of November, in the 8th year of our reign.
John went back to England and landed at Portsmouth on Decem-
ber 12. This expedition had not been entirely fruitless. He had made
his hold on Aquitaine more firm and had investigated and improved
the administration of the duchy. If he intended to hold Aquitaine
rather than to cede it supinely to Philip, such a visit served a useful
purpose in reminding the nobles that he was still their lord and in
showing Philip that he did not intend to abandon his rights.
The Pope, in full Consistory, on December zi, 1206, delivered
his decisions regarding the Canterbury elections. Innocent III was
one of the greatest Popes of the Middle Ages. He was born Lothario
of Segni inn6oorn6i, and he studied theology at Paris and law
at Bologna. His uncle Clement III, who was Pope from 1187 to
1191, made him a Cardinal in 1 191. When Clement's successor,
Celestine III, died on January 8, 1198, Cardinal Lothario was
elected Pope that same day. He at once set about ruling the Church
with vigor and ability. Innocent was guided by two great aims: to
reform, restore, and unify the Church, giving it a universal discipline
expressed in the Canon Law and removing more and more of its
administration to the Papal Curia in Rome; and unceasingly to assert
-120/7 Tfee Canterbury Elections 139
the supremacy of the spiritual over all temporal powers. Innocent's
conception of the role and duties of the Papacy was a most lofty one,
and in putting it into execution he displayed great ability and remark-
able tenacity. He kept his primary objectives clearly in mind and
suffered nothing to deflect him from his pursuit of them.
His knowledge of the law was the admiration of his contempo-
raries. He personally heard cases in Consistory three days a week,
and lawyers crowded to hear his summaries of the cases before him
and to wonder at the wisdom of his decisions. His knowledge of the
law, unfortunately, was not balanced by an equal understanding of
men. He tended to be rigid and uncompromising, sacrificing to the
letter of the law the possibilities of accommodations and adjustments
that might have made his rulings more generally acceptable. Even
the most learned legal decision is of little value if it cannot be en-
forced, and there are many occasions when a strict adherence to the
letter of the law might well be tempered by a consideration of the
human elements involved in the case. In the Canterbury affair,
which grew from small beginnings into a monstrous scandal, Inno-
cent may have adhered to the strict Canon Law, but he showed him-
self woefully ignorant of the power of custom and tradition in Eng-
land and particularly ill-informed concerning the character of the
English King.
In the first place, the Pope decreed, the right of electing the arch-
bishop belonged to the minster-men of Canterbury alone, and the
suffragan bishops, in spite of having assisted at the election of three
archbishops in the past, had no legitimate claim to participate in the
election. The Pope then declared that both of the disputed elections
were invalid: the first because it had been made surreptitiously and
by a minority of the chapter, the older and wiser monks not having
participated; and the second, that of John Grey, because it had been
made before the first had been annulled.
Because the Sub-Prior Reginald and Bishop John Grey had been
140
parties to these irregular proceedings, the Pope disqualified both of
them from ever holding the Archbishopric in the future. This was
the normal practice in the case of disputed elections. When the Pope
quashed a man's election to a bishopric, he almost always added a
prohibition forbidding that man to hold any episcopal see in the
future without a direct dispensation from the Pope. Men usually
were nominated bishops because of the king's influence. If they were
denied a particular see by the Pope, the king's favor would assure
them of election to the next suitable vacancy, unless such a disquali-
fication were enforced.
A deputation of sixteen monks from Canterbury had come to the
papal court to hear these decisions. Twelve of them, before they left
England, had sworn a solemn oath to the King that if they were re-
quired to participate in an election, they would cast their votes for
John Grey. Innocent told them of his great solicitude for the See of
Canterbury, which now, thanks to his delaying tactics, had been
without a head for a year and a half. To fill that vacancy, the Pope
asked them to proceed therewith to elect Cardinal Stephen Langton,
who was present at the Consistory. Innocent praised his learning, his
virtue, and his discretion, and he assured the monks that the election
of Cardinal Langton would be of great advantage not only to the
Church in England but also to the King, who would benefit from so
wise a counsellor.
The monks, having just had a good lesson in Canon Law, replied
that they could neither elect an archbishop nor consent to an election
unless they first had the King's permission and the authorization of
their chapter. Innocent, who did not know John as well as did the
monks, assured them that the King's consent was not necessary for
elections made at the Apostolic See. The Pope informed them that
they were of sufficient number and of such character, being of the
older and wiser part whose votes counted for more than did those of
the younger and more foolish monks, as to be able to make a valid
120/7 The Canterbury Elections 141
election, and he ordered them, by virtue of their vow of obedience
and under threat of excommunication, to elect as archbishop the man
he had just named to them as a father and the shepherd of their souls.
The twelve who had sworn to John that they would vote for John
Grey told the Pope of their oath, and he dispensed them from it
therewith.
The monks, under die eyes of the Pope and the assembled Col-
lege of Cardinals, "reluctantly and with murmuring/* says Roger of
Wendover, gave their consent, with the exception of Master Elias
of Brantfield, who considered himself bound by his oath to the King.
The other monks chanted the Te Deum and carried Cardinal Lang-
ton to the altar.
The man thus elected was indubitably of English birth, although
he had not lived in England, apparently, since his early youth. He
had gained the degree of Doctor of Theology at the University of
Paris and had continued to live and teach there. Whilst he was at
Paris he conceived the idea of dividing the text of the Bible into
chapters for easier reference, an arrangement that is followed to the
present day. He was also the author of the great hymn, Veni, Sancte
Spiritus. He had quickly won a reputation for great learning and
holiness of life, and he had become a friend and trusted advisor of
King Philip. He had been made a prebend of York and of the Ca-
thedral of Our Lady in Paris. Innocent III had summoned him to
Rome and had created him Cardinal in 1206, and Matthew Paris
remarks that he was equal if not superior to any one at the papal court
in probity and learning.
John meanwhile kept the Christmas of 1206 at Winchester.
Twenty oxen, 100 pigs, 100 sheep, 1,500 chickens, and 5,000
eggs were consumed at the feast, at a cost of i i 1 6s. 6d., and 500
yards of linen were used for table napery.
At Candlemas, February 2, 1 207, he summoned his council and
ordered that a tax of a thirteenth or, more exactly, a shilling on every
142- [1205-
mark (135. 4d.) of the value of all movable property be laid on
both laymen and clerics. John was usually in need of money, both
because his foreign expeditions were expensive affairs and because
the ordinary income of the Exchequer was not sufficient to provide
for the increasing cost of the governmental administration. In earlier
times, the king had been expected to "live of his own": that is, the
income from his extensive lands, from the royal manors, and from the
fines levied in the royal courts was supposed to provide not only for
the maintenance of the royal household but also for the expenses of
the whole legal, financial, and administrative system of the country.
No line was drawn between the personal expenses of the king and
his court and the cost of the official administration. For the last fifty
years, as the organization set up by Henry II had become increas-
ingly complex, the expenses of such an organization increased ac-
cordingly, without a corresponding increase in the revenue of the
Crown.
The feudal dues were no longer a dependable source of income
sufficient to meet the emergencies for which they were originally
intended or to form a substantial part of the income of the Exchequer.
The king's tenants-in-chief paid reliefs on the occasion of their tak-
ing possession of their fiefs and aids at the knighting of the king's
eldest son, for the marriage of the king's eldest daughter, and to make
up the king's ransom if he were captured. Their obligation to mili-
tary service was gradually being transformed, beginning in the reign
of Henry I, into the payment of a fee known as scutage in commu-
tation for the service, with which the king could hire mercenary sol"
diers to fight in their stead. Scutage could normally be levied only in
time of war, and it was a disputed point as to whether either military
service or scutage was due when the war was being fought overseas.
John, however, levied scutages regularly and successfully on lay and
ecclesiastical lands alike tc t >ay for his foreign wars.
-i 2 o/J The Canterbury Elections 143
By John's time the pressing need was for a regular system of taxa"
tion that would yield a certain sum annually to defray the expenses
of the government, that could be collected without undue trouble,
and that would bear more or less equitably on all his subjects in pro*
portion to their ability to pay. Two methods of taxation most nearly
met these qualifications: a land tax and a tax on movable property.
The land tax, under the old name of Danegeld, had been levied
principally before the Conquest; it had long ceased to be a regular
source of government income. Hubert Walter, the financial and ad'
ministrative genius of the time, revived the land tax, or carucage as it
was now called, during the reign of Richard, and John had frequent
recourse to it. The tax on movable property normally took the form
of a grant of a certain proportion of property made by the Great
Council for a specific purpose.
Although there was a great deal of murmuring against the tax
John levied in the spring of 1207, the money was collected with
speed and vigor. Special assessors went all over the country to esti"
mate the amount each man was to pay, and the sheriffs collected the
money. Those who tried to list their possessions at less than their
real value or to conceal their property were heavily fined, and those
who sought to avoid paying had their goods seized and in some cases
were thrown into prison. The tax yielded almost sixty thousand
pounds, a handsome sum indeed.
The only one to oppose it openly was Geoffrey, Archbishop of
York. He claimed that the King had no right to tax the movable
property of the clergy, ordered his clergy not to pay the tax, and ex*
communicated all the officers who tried to collect it. John was too
strong for him, however. Geoffrey launched a final anathema against
the agents of this robbery, as he termed it, and fled to the Continent.
He appealed to the Pope, and Innocent, in December 1207, laid
the whole Province of York under an interdict, which had no effect
144
and was generally disregarded. This protest was Geoffrey's final act
in English affairs; nothing more is heard of him till his death in 1 2 1 2,
still in exile.
John sent a graceful letter to his brother-in-law on May 6 :
THE KING, to his beloved brother Peter de Joigny: GREET-
ING. We command you to come safely to England until the
feast of St. John Baptist, in the gth year of our reign, to see the
Lady Queen, our wife and your sister, who greatly longs to see
you, and we much entreat you thereto.
Innocent III wrote to John in the spring of 1207 to inform him
of the election of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury.
His Holiness greatly praised the learning, the virtues, the life, and
the morals of Cardinal Langton and pointed out to John that a man
of such exemplary piety would be of great advantage to the welfare
of the King's soul, as well as, through his learning and skill, to the
temporal affairs of the kingdom. The Pope also ordered the minster-
men of Canterbury to receive Stephen as their pastor and to obey
him in all things, both temporal and spiritual. Without waiting for a
reply to these letters, Innocent consecrated Stephen Langton at
Viterbo on June 17, 1207.
When John received the Pope's letter, he fell into one of the vio-
lent rages to which the members of the House of Anjou were par-
ticularly prone. His wrath was aroused on two counts: that the elec-
tion of John Grey had been annulled, and that Stephen Langton
had been elected. He vented his anger first on the minster-men of
Canterbury, whom he accused of having crowned their perfidious
conduct with treachery. First they had elected the Sub-Prior Reginald
to be Archbishop, without even having notified John of the fact, much
less having asked his permission to hold the election. To redeem this
fault, they had then elected John Grey, who they knew would be
-120/7 fine Canterbury Elections 145
acceptable to him. The King had given them money from his own
purse to pay the expenses of their journey to Rome to secure the con-
firmation of John Grey. When they had arrived in Rome at his ex-
pense, however, they had proceeded to elect Stephen Langton, who
was known to be an open enemy of the King, to the highest ecclesi-
astical position in the realm.
Furthermore, the whole miserable business had begun with their
childish attempts to hold a clandestine election without consulting
him, as though they were electing the prior of the most obscure con-
vent in England instead of an Archbishop of Canterbury. That piece
of folly had thrown the election into the Pope's hands and given him
the opportunity to try to foist his own nominee on the King. If they
had behaved like grown men, worthy of the King's trust, instead of
like a parcel of mischievous and irresponsible children, John Grey
would have been consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury long be"
fore now and the ecclesiastical affairs of the kingdom would be in
capable hands and at peace.
John's anger against the minstepmen of Canterbury knew no
bounds. On July 14 he sent two knights of his household, Fulk
de Cantelu and Henry of Cornhill, to Canterbury. With drawn
swords they entered the monastery and ordered the Prior and his
monks, as traitors to the King's Majesty, to leave the country immedi-
ately. Unless the monks obeyed forthwith, the two knights threat-
ened to set fire to the monastery and roast the monks alive in their
buildings. Faced with such threats, sixty-seven monks fled to Flan-
ders and took refuge in friendly abbeys there, leaving behind thirteen
monks who were in the infirmary and too ill to walk. John installed
some monks from St. Augustine's in the monastery to take care of the
Cathedral services and put Fulk de Cantelu in charge of the Ca-
thedral properties. The revenues from the rich lands belonging to the
Archbishop and to the monastery, amounting to .almost 1500 a
year, reverted to the Crown.
146 [1205-
Stephen Langton meanwhile remained on the Continent, fearing
to come to England while the King's anger was so hot against him.
He stayed at the Cistercian monastery of Pontigny, where Thomas
Becket, too, had lived in exile. The Archbishop's father, Henry
Langton, fled to Scotland in fear of John's wrath. The King ordered
all his possessions confiscated, and Henry died in exile around 1210.
In his reply to the Pope's letter, John stated explicitly the grounds
for his objection to Stephen Langton. Not only had the Pope an-
nulled the election of John Grey, whom the King had particularly
recommended for the position; he had also consecrated Stephen
Langton, a man who was quite unknown personally to John and
who had been for many years the trusted advisor and friend of John's
bitterest enemy, Philip of France. John considered it a direct per-
sonal insult that Innocent should attempt to foist on him as Arch-
bishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England, the cleric who by
the very nature of his office was entitled to share in the King's closest
councils, a man who had spent his adult life in Paris and had been on
terms of intimate friendship with a king whose greatest ambition was
to accomplish John's destruction. That in itself was a slap in the face
to John personally; what turned a personal affront into an attempt to
deprive the Crown of its just and customary rights and privileges
was the fact that neither the monks who performed this election, if
one could call it that, nor the Pope who consecrated Stephen had
troubled to ask his permission for the election or consulted him in any
way as to the acceptability of the man so elected.
John expressed his amazement that the Pope, before he treated
him with such studied contempt, had not recalled how much the
friendship of the King of England had hitherto meant to the papal
court, inasmuch as more money had poured into the papal coffers
from England than from all the other countries on that side of the
Alps combined. The King declared that he would stand up for the
rights of his crown and defend them with his life, and he expressed
-120/7 The Canterbury Elections 147
his firm intention to insist upon the election and promotion of John
Grey to the Archbishopric, because the Bishop of Norwich was a
man whom he knew and trusted. If his wishes were not attended to,
John declared that he would cut ofi all traffic with Rome and thus
keep in England the treasure that had formerly poured into Rome
and that he might better use to defend his territories from his enemies.
There was no need, he added, to extol the learning of Stephen Lang-
ton; in England there were plenty of clerics of every degree who
were well versed in every branch of knowledge, and John did not
have to beg for justice or judgment from strangers and foreigners.
Innocent's reply to this intemperate letter must have seemed to
John full of legalistic quibblings and evasions. The Pope began by
reproaching him for his rebellious and stiff-necked attitude. "Whereas
We defer to you more than We ought, you show Us less considera-
tion than you ought; for if your devotion is very necessary to Us,
still Our regard is no less advantageous to you/* To John's objection
that Stephen Langton was a man unknown to him, Innocent replied
that it was strange that the King did not know a man of such wide"
spread fame for virtue and knowledge, a man to whom John had
written three times to congratulate him on his having been created
Cardinal, telling him that he had wanted to summon Stephen to his
service but was now happy that he had been raised to a higher office.
Furthermore, wrote Innocent, Stephen's loyalty was proved not
only by his having been born in England of parents loyal to John but
also by his having accepted a prebendal stall at York.
As to the matter of John's consent, Innocent affirmed that al-
though it was not the custom to wait for any prince's permission when
elections were made at the Apostolic See, he had nevertheless sent
two monks to John for the express purpose of asking his consent, but
the monks had been detained at Dover and had not been able to
reach the King. The Pope asserted that he had full authority over
the Church of Canterbury. The election had been made, and he did
148
not intend to be diverted from seeing this matter through to the end.
Innocent advised John to acquiesce and commit himself to the Pope's
good pleasure, warning him that otherwise "you may bring yourself
into difficulties from which you will not easily be extricated/'
John's first son, meanwhile, was born in the autumn of this year,
on October r , 1 207, at Winchester. He was christened Henry, after
his grandfather. John kept the Christmas of 1207 at Windsor, and
during the festive celebrations he distributed rich cloaks among his
knights. He seems to have been in a benevolent frame of mind, as
the following letter suggests:
THE KING ETC. to William of Albini ETC. Be it known to
you that we have granted to Robert de Ros that his son, who is
in your custody, may be with him and his mother this winter.
And the same Robert has agreed that he will return him to its at
Easter. And we therefore command you to deliver him to Rob-
ert. WITNESSED BY THE LORD PETER, BISHOP OF WIN-
CHESTER, at Guildford, on the z8th day of December.
When Innocent realized that John had no intention of relaxing
his opposition to Stephen Langton, His Holiness wrote to William
of Sainte-'M^re^l'Eglise, Bishop of London; Eustace, Bishop of Ely;
and Mauger, Bishop of Worcester, ordering them to try to reason
with the King about the Canterbury affair and to induce him to yield
to the Pope. If they found him still obdurate, however, Innocent di-
rected them to lay the whole kingdom under interdict and to tell
John that if the interdict failed to bring him to submission the Pope
had even more severe punishments in store for him. Innocent also
wrote to the suffragan bishops of the Southern Province and again
commanded them to receive Stephen Langton as their father and
pastor and to obey him as their rightful Archbishop.
The three bishops came to John and with tears begged him to re-
120/7 The Canterbury Elections 149
call the minster-men of Canterbury to their monastery and to receive
Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury. They implored him
not to expose the kingdom to the shame and humiliation of a general
interdict. God would reward him with honor on earth and glory in
heaven, they assured him, if he would but submit himself in this
matter to the Supreme Pontiff.
When the bishops tried to reason further with him, John became
almost mad with rage. He broke into wild blasphemies against the
Pope and the College of Cardinals and swore "by God's teeth" that
if the Pope or anyone else dared lay his kingdom under an interdict
he would drive every clerk, priest, and prelate out of England and
confiscate all their property. Furthermore, he declared, if he found
any Roman clerks in any of his territories he would pack them off
to Rome with their eyes gouged out and their nostrils slit, so that men
might know who they were. And if the bishops valued their own
safety, he added, they would get out of his sight immediately.
The bishops left the royal presence in haste and reported the re*
suits of the interview to Innocent.
One last attempt was made by Simon Langton, Stephen's brother,
but the interview led to nothing, as John reported in the following
letter:
THE KING to all the men of the whole of Kent ETC. Be it
known to you that Master Simon Langton came to us at Win-
chester on the Wednesday next before Mid-Lent and in the pres-
ence of our bishops asked us to receive Master Stephen Langton,
his brother, as Archbishop of Canterbury. And when we spoke
to him of preserving our dignity in this matter 9 he told us that he
would do nothing concerning that unless we threw ourselves
wholly upon his mercy. And we tell you this, so that you may
know the evil and the injury that has been done to us in this of*
fair, and we command you to believe what Reginald of Cornhill
i$o [1205-
will tell you on our behalf about the aforesaid happenings be*
tween us and the aforesaid bishops, and that same Simon, and to
obey our orders in this matter. MYSELF AS WITNESS, at Win-
chester, on the 1 4th day of March.
John sent Reginald of Cornhill to Canterbury as the bearer of this
letter and to take over the custody of all the lands and treasure be*
longing to the Archbishopric and the monastery*
CHAPTER IX
THE INTERDICT
1208-1209
|\ THEN Innocent III learned that John had no inten-
ra\ / tion of submitting to him and of receiving Stephen
v$V Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury and when the
Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester reported that their expostu"
lations and entreaties did not move the King, the Pope ordered the
three bishops to lay the whole of England under interdict. The bish*
ops accordingly published the dreadful sentence on the Monday in
Passion Week, March 23, 1208. Having done this, they, together
with Jocelyn of Wells, Bishop of Bath, and Giles de Braose, Bishop
of Hereford, fled to the Continent. There, Roger of Wendover
charges, "they lived on all kinds of delicacies instead of placing them-
selves as a wall for the House of God; when they saw the wolf com"
ing they left their sheep and fled/*
Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, one of John's particular
favorites, was soon the only member of the hierarchy left in England.
15^ [izo8-
Archbishop Geoffrey of York was in exile, and the Bishop of Coven-
try fled to the Continent and died in this year. The Bishops of
Rochester and of Salisbury, after enduring much persecution, took
refuge at the court of William the Lion in Scotland in 1209. The
King in 1208 sent John Grey, Bishop of Norwich, as his justiciar
to Ireland, where he remained till 1213. The sees of Lincoln, Chi"
Chester, and Exeter were vacant, and John of course made no attempt
to fill them, for as long as they were without a bishop the income from
the lands attached to the dioceses reverted to the Crown. Philip,
Bishop of Durham, died on April 22, 1208. He had paid a thou-
sand pounds in the preceding year "for the King's benevolence," and
John collected a further two thousand marks from the Bishop's
executors.
The interdict stopped all religious services. Children were bap-
tized privately; confessions were heard at the church door; and ser-
mons were preached only in the churchyard. The dying were shriven
and given the Viaticum, but they could not be given Extreme Unc-
tion, for no bishop could consecrate the Holy Oils. With these ex-
ceptions, all the functions of the Church were suspended. The Mass,
the center and heart of Catholic life, could not be celebrated, except
for the renewal of the Viaticum, when the priest was permitted to
celebrate behind closed doors with no one save a single server pres-
ent; Holy Communion, the spiritual food of the faithful, could not
be distributed; no services of any kind could be held in any church;
marriages were contracted at the church door without the usual bless-
ing; bells could not be rung, and the dead were buried like dogs in
unconsecrated ground.
This would be a crushing blow to any Catholic community; it
was felt with a keenness we can hardly now imagine in the England
of that time, where most of the people lived in small villages, almost
wholly isolated from the rest of the world. Their lives were hard;
they lacked the comforts of life and counted themselves fortunate to
1209] The Interdict 153
have the bare necessities of food, clothing, and shelter. In those lim-
ited lives the Church played a most important part and offered the
people their only means of lifting their thoughts ahove the daily
round. Frequent Communion was not so widely practiced then as it
is now, but the number of holy days of obligation was greater, so that
the ordinary Catholic probably heard Mass more often then than he
does today. Practically everyone heard Mass every day as a matter
of course.
The village priests, on whom the burden of the care of souls fell,
were in most cases poorly educated. They knew only enough Latin
to be able to read the services; if they had had much more education
they would have had a more lucrative and pleasant post in some no-
bleman's household, in some bishop's court, or in the employment of
the king himself. Education, in the sense of something more than a
mere ability to read and understand Latin, the universal language
both of the Church and, together with Norman-French, of the
Court, was practically the monopoly of the clergy. Thus almost all
the administrative work of the royal government was in the hands of
men in some stage of Holy Orders.
The village priests, however, were far removed from the intel-
lectual stimulation of such a life and tended to sink to the level of the
peasants among whom they spent their lives and from whose ranks
they had often come. In many cases they were merely vicars for a
monastery or chapter that appropriated the income of the church and
gave the priests a stipend so low that they could barely live on it. So
low were the stipends, in fact, that in 1 222 it was found necessary
to fix the minimum at five marks a year. This was equivalent to the
pay of common soldiers and sailors, who of course were fed in addi"
tion. This miserable wage might be supplemented by gifts from the
parishioners, but even so it represented a standard of living barely
distinguishable from that of the peasants.
That these men, poorly educated and still more poorly rewarded,
i 5 4 [1208-
held firm to their posts, giving their flocks such consolations as were
in their powers, is an impressive tribute to the strength of their faith.
Sometimes their lives were far from edifying, particularly with re-
gard to the virtue of celibacy. Gerald of Wales has some sharp things
to say of the priest "who prefers a worldly life, to his own ruin and
eternal damnation, who keeps a heardvcompanion in his house to
extinguish all his virtues, and who has his miserable house full of
babies and cradles, midwives and nurses/' Nevertheless, the village
priests and their people kept their faith through these difficult times,
and the whole of England was singularly free of heresy.
In any case, there were then, as there always have been, many
ordinary men and women who were trying to lead the best lives
they could, and to them the stopping of all the services of the Church,
the deprivation of the spiritual help and comfort they received from
hearing Mass and frequenting the Sacraments, and the breaking of
the visible ties that united them in the Church that embraced all
Christendom must have filled them with suffering, shame, and hor-
ror. To have inflicted such a punishment on several million innocent
Christians in order to bring one guilty man to account showed a cal-
lous disregard for the welfare of men's souls that ill befitted the Vicar
of Christ. One is constantly amazed, throughout this period, at the
frequency with which even virtuous and well-meaning prelates
launched interdicts and excommunications right and left for what
seem to be completely secular offenses.
The interdict was observed throughout England, except by the
Cistercian monks. They obeyed it when it was first published, but
afterwards the Abbot of Citeaux told them to disregard it, on the
grounds that he had not seen an authenticated copy of the papal or-
der. When the Pope learned of this, he ordered the White Monks to
observe the interdict in all its strictness.
John's reply to the proclamation of the interdict was swift and vio-
-12097 The Interdict 155
lent. He sent his sheriffs and other officers throughout the land to
order all priests to leave the kingdom immediately. Let them go to
Rome, the King ordered, and force the Pope to treat him justly. He
confiscated all property belonging to the Church and diverted the
ecclesiastical revenues to the royal exchequer. The clergy had had
ample time to plan their course of action in a contingency that all
could see was impending, and, with the exception of the bishops who
ran away, they refused to leave unless they were expelled by vio"
lence. The King's officers may have been unwilling to add to the
general troubles by bringing down upon themselves and their master
die sentence of excommunication that was incurred ipso facto by
those that laid violent hands on a cleric, and the King himself may
have been moved by a grudging admiration for men who chose to
stay and face whatever troubles he might inflict upon them. It would
have been well-nigh impossible, in any case, for the whole clergy of
England to have gone into exile in a body. At any rate, they were
allowed to remain and enjoy the weight of John's displeasure.
Since all their revenues and properties had been confiscated, the
clergy subsisted on a small allowance of food and clothing doled out
to them by the royal officers, under the supervision of four lawful
men of each parish. The Dunstable Annals record that "the King
commanded that the goods of the religious should be taken into his
hand and that those who refused to sing the services should get out.
But afterwards on the fourth day his anger cooled, and the aforesaid
goods were put under constables."
John took a wry pleasure in holding the priests* concubines for
heavy ransoms, for not all the decrees of Popes, councils, bishops,
and synods had yet succeeded in stamping out clerical incontinence.
He had the relatives of Archbishop Stephen and of the bishops that
had pronounced the sentence seized, stripped of all their possessions,
and put in prison. When the King's more irresponsible mercenaries
i$6 [1208-
found any clerics traveling on the roads, they dragged them off their
horses and mistreated them. Moreover, the victims could not get
justice in any court,
Roger of Wendover tells that some of the servants of a certain
sheriff brought before the King a robber, with his hands tied behind
his back, who had robbed and murdered a priest on the highway.
They asked John what punishment they should mete out to the
criminal.
"Let him go," ordered the King, "for he has slain one of my
enemies."
John made a notable addition to his library while all this was go-
ing on. In a letter dated March 29, izo8, to the Abbot of Reading,
he acknowledges the receipt at the hand of Gervase, the Sacristan of
Reading, of the entire Old Testament in six books, the Treatise on
the Sacraments by Master Hugh of St. Victor, the Sentences of Peter
Lombard, St. Augustine's Of the City of Qod and his commentary
on the third part of the Psalter, and Origen's Treatise on the Old
Testament, among others.
Powerful as it was, John knew that the interdict was not the last
or the strongest weapon in the Pope's arsenal. There remained the
sentence of excommunication by name, which would cut him off
from all Christians and force them to avoid any dealings with him,
and, as a last resort, the Pope could free his subjects from their oath
of fealty. To be prepared for these eventualities, John demanded
hostages from his nobles and particularly from those whose loyalty he
had reason to doubt. The nobles of whom he made this demand
turned over their sons, nephews, or other close relatives to John's
keeping, and thus he secured a powerful hold over them.
William de Braose, a member of a family that had come over at
the Conquest, was already in John's bad graces on two counts: he
was the father of Giles de Braose, Bishop of Hereford, who had pro-
nounced the sentence of interdict and then fled the country, and he
The Interdict 157
owed John money. In izoi the King had given him the Honour of
Limerick on condition that he pay five hundred marks a year for ten
years, but over the next six years he paid only seven hundred marks
in all When John's messengers came to William and demanded
hostages from him, his wife Maude answered:
"I will not deliver up my sons to your lord, King John, for he
foully murdered his nephew Arthur, whom he should have cared for
honorably/ 3
This charge, recorded by Roger of Wendover, has especial weight
as coming from the wife of a man who was with John in Normandy
in April 1203, at the time Arthur is supposed to have been mur-
dered.
William rebuked his wife and told the messengers: "If I have
offended the King in any way, I am ready to give satisfaction to him
without the need of hostages, according to the decision of his court
and of my fellow barons, if he will set a time and place for me to
do so."
When this was reported to John, he sent some of his knights to
take William and all his family prisoners, but William was fore*
warned by his friends at court and fled with his family to Ireland,
where he took refuge with the Lacy family.
About this time Stephen Langton made an effort to come to Eng-
land in person and discuss matters with John, for in September the
King issued the following safe-conduct:
THE KING, to all ETC. Be it known that we grant Stephen
Langton, a Cardinal of the Roman See, a safe and secure conduct
to come to England as far as Dover and to remain there until
St. MichaeTs Day, in the loth year of our reign, for three weeks.
Thus when the three weeks are up, within the eight following
days let him return, unless a very strong wind detains him. And
in witness of this matter we issue this letter patent to him. WIT-
i 5 8 [1208-
NESSED BY G. FiTzPETER at Silverstone, the gth day of Sep-
tember, in the zoth year of our reign.
Nothing came of this, either because Langton did not trust the
King or because he was offended by the title by which he was called,
which indicated clearly that John did not consider him an archbishop
at all, much less Archbishop of Canterbury.
Stern and unyielding though he was in his negotiations with ec*
clesiastics, John showed a gentler side of his nature to nuns, as the
following letter shows:
BE IT KNOWN that we have received into our protection and
defence Agnes, the Prioress of the Church of Blessed Mary of
Clairvawc, and Erenburga, her sister, with her messengers and
servants, who have been sent to England with letters from the
convent of the same place to beg alms for their house. And we
therefore command you to protect them, and we beg you for the
love of Qod to receive them kindly and help them with your
alms. WITNESSED BT JOHN FrrzHuoH at Woodstock, on the
z6th day of November, in the i oth year of our reign.
The Pipe Rolls abound in such entries as: "For eleven thousand
herrings bought and given to various nuns, 555." (From the Pipe
Roll of 121 1.) During that year alone, John bought 191,000 her"
rings, at a cost of 37 us. id., and had them distributed among
convents in almost every county in England.
In the autumn John received the cheering news of the election of
his nephew Otto as Emperor of Germany, and he at once started
building up again around the figure of his nephew a coalition of the
leading men of the Low Countries, with the eventual aim of uniting
them all with him against Philip of France. The fall of Rouen and
the loss of Normandy had been followed by no treaty; Philip was
-12097 T/ie Interdict 159
simply left in possession of the land, and John never gave up the
hope of driving him out. With the accession of Otto to the imperial
throne, that hope was now revived.
Otto's election came as the culmination of ten years of civil war.
He was the second son of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, and of
John's eldest sister, Matilda. During Otto's boyhood, his father was
twice driven into exile, and both times he had sought refuge in Eng-
land. Thus Otto had been at least partly educated there. He had
become a great favorite of his uncle Richard, for he was a lad after
Richard's own heart. "Roaring like a lion's whelp, driven by the lust
for plunder, eager for battle, he fought for victory or death." Richard
had made him Count of Poitou.
When the Emperor Henry VI died in September 1 197, Richard
had set to work to secure his nephew's election. A majority of the
electors chose Philip of Swabia in March 1 198, but the opponents
of the House of Hohenstaufen had not been willing to abide by the
results of that election. Under the leadership of the Archbishop of
Cologne and influenced both by Richard's bribes and by the de*
pendence of Cologne and the country of the lower Rhine upon their
trade with England, the electors of that part of Germany met at
Cologne and elected Otto Emperor on June 9, 1 198. Otto had im*
mediately bid for the support of the princes of the Low Countries by
becoming betrothed to the daughter of the Duke of Brabant. He had
further strengthened his position by being crowned at Aix'la'Cha"
pelle by the Archbishop of Cologne, an act which would have been
equivalent in England to being crowned in Westminster Abbey by
the Archbishop of Canterbury. The fact remained, however, that
Otto had been the candidate of only a small party of German princes,
and his influence had been confined largely to the area around
Cologne.
Civil war of an appalling ferocity broke out. Otto was sustained
for a while by English gold, but when Richard died in May 1 199
i6o [1208-
that had come to an abrupt end. John's negotiations with Philip of
France tied his hands, and one of the terms of the treaty of Le Goulet,
of May i zoo, was that John should give no help, either with men
or with money, to Otto, Innocent III, however, had supported him
with all his strength, and it was in no small part due to his interfer-
ence that the civil war continued as long as it did. He had taken over
Tuscany, the Duchy of Spoleto, and the March of Ancona, and his
attitude throughout the dispute was determined hy his resolution to
hold on to these territories at any cost. Philip of Swabia was resolved
to wrest them from the Pope if he ever got the opportunity, whereas
Otto, ever lavish with promises, since he had nothing else to offer,
pledged himself to respect those areas as belonging to the Church
of Rome.
Otto's position had gone from bad to worse; that he could sustain
the struggle as long as he did was a tribute to his military skill and
personal bravery, in which he showed himself well worthy of his
uncle Richard. Finally Cologne, his last and principal stronghold,
capitulated to Philip of Swabia at the end of 1206. Otto escaped to
his Duchy of Brunswick and thence to England.
John received him cordially and gave him the sum of six thousand
marks. This may have been the beginning of the subsidies which
John henceforth poured into the Low Countries, or it may have been
part payment of Richard's legacy to Otto, which John had hitherto
refused to pay. When Richard died, Otto had sent his two younger
brothers to England to collect the legacy Richard had willed him,
but John refused to give diem anything. John was never one to pay
out money unless he could be sure of getting something in return,
and Otto's position at the time seemed so hopeless that John may
well have decided that he had better uses for the money. Even
Queen Berengaria, Richard's widow, had to struggle for years to
wrest her dowry from John,
Just when the way was clear for Philip of Swabia to be crowned
Interdict i 6 i
without any opposition, since even Innocent had at last been forced
to accept the inevitable and Philip had agreed to respect the Pope's
annexations in central Italy, Philip was murdered in June 1 208 by
Count Otto of Wittelsbach, in a private quarrel. Germany was sick
of civil war, and no one wanted to put forward a candidate to dispute
Otto's claim. He was unanimously elected Emperor on Novem*
ber 1 1, 1208. The long war was over, and once again John's hopes
of building up a vast continental coalition against Philip of France
revived.
John began to subsidize the leading men of the Low Countries
and to carry on a great deal of correspondence with Otto. His brother
Henry, the Count Palatine, came to England in the spring of 1209,
ostensibly to intercede for Stephen Langton. John gave him a pen-
sion of a thousand marks a year, and Henry left his young son to be
educated at the English court. Otto was crowned by Innocent in
Rome on October 4, 1209, and already he was plotting to seize
from the Pope the lands he had promised to respect.
John spent the Christmas of 1208 at Bristol His second son was
born on January 5, 1 209 and was christened Richard, after his uncle
of immortal fame. Richard's nurse, Eva, was paid fourpence a day,
whereas Helen, the young Henry's nurse, received only twopence*
Early in 1209 the Pope, at die request of Archbishop Stephen
Langton, who had perforce to remain on the Continent, relaxed the
severity of the interdict somewhat by permitting the celebration of
Mass once a week in die conventual churches. This privilege was
not extended to the Cistercians, however, to punish them for having
previously disregarded the interdict, and it did not affect the parish
churches, the centers of die religious life of the nation.
England had now been under the interdict for a year, and no very
dreadful results had become apparent. The country was prosperous;
her foreign trade, based mainly on wool, was increasing steadily;
there was no Crusade or expedition against Philip of France to keep
i6z
the nobles out of the realm, and they were thus able to turn their at"
tention to the management of their estates. Financially both John and,
indirectly, the whole kingdom benefited greatly from the interdict,
for the confiscation of the ecclesiastical properties brought so much
money into the exchequer that there was no need for any general
taxation. Indeed, when the whole business was over, it was generally
agreed that John took over a hundred thousand pounds from the
Church.
John had insured himself against any overt disaffection on the part
of his nobles by taking hostages from them; he now turned his atten-
tion to the northern border. He collected a large force and marched
north, with the intention of making sure that William the Lion, of
Scotland, gave him no trouble. At Norham, in Northumberland, he
drew up his army in battle array, but William, who was now past
sixtyfive years of age, was too cautious to accept this challenge. He
sued for peace, and John reproached him with harboring his enemies
and giving assistance to them. A treaty was drawn up between them
on June 28, 1 209, according to which William agreed to pay twelve
thousand marks as a fine and to give his two legitimate daughters,
Margaret and Isabella, as hostages for his good conduct in the future.
When he returned from Northumberland John had all the free"
holders in England come and swear fealty to him. This order in"
eluded boys of the age of twelve and upwards, who were obliged to
take their part in the defence of the country. After the King had re-
ceived their homage he dismissed them with the kiss of peace. So
great was John's power that he succeeded in forcing the Welsh to
come to Woodstock and do homage to him, a thing, remarks Roger
of Wendover, that had never been heard of in the past.
At about this time a certain clerk who was studying the liberal
arts at Oxford accidentally killed a woman and then fled from the
town. The Mayor of Oxford and some of his officials, in their search
for the guilty man, arrested and put in prison three of his fellow clerks
-12097 T7w Interdict 163
who had rented a house with him. When this case was brought before
the King for judgment, he ordered that the three clerks, without
benefit of clergy, should be taken outside the town and hanged. In
protest, the entire population of the University, masters as well as
pupils, numbering some three thousand, left Oxford and migrated,
some to Cambridge (which is the first mention we have of that uni'
versity so renowned for beauty and learning), and some to Reading.
William of Blois, Bishop of Lincoln, had died on Ascension Eve,
1206. As his successor the chapter, at John's suggestion, elected
Hugh of Wells, the elder brother of Jocelyn of Wells, Bishop of
Bath. John immediately gave him jurisdiction over the temporal pos-
sessions of the bishopric as a mark of his great favor. Hugh could not
be consecrated in England, however, because of the interdict, and
John accordingly sent him to Normandy to be consecrated by the
Archbishop of Rouen. When Hugh got out of England he showed
his independence by going to Archbishop Stephen Langton, still in
exile, and swearing obedience to him. The Archbishop consecrated
him on December 20, 1 209.
When John learned of this, he declared Hugh a traitor and confis-
cated all the property he had conferred on the Bishop at his election.
Lincoln was a large and wealthy diocese, the largest in England, and
its revenues swelled the royal exchequer considerably.
CHAPTER X 5*?
EXCOMMUNICATION
I209-I2I2
T LAST Pope Innocent III began to realize that the
interdict, which had proved effective against Philip of
France, would not bring John to submission. Indeed, the
publication of the sentence apparently strengthened John's position,
for it cut most of the prelates off from any participation in the gov-
ernment and thus gave the King a more nearly absolute hand in
the conduct of affairs. It weakened the authority of the clergy from the
Archbishop down to the humblest priest and demonstrated that the
people could after all dispense with those services of the Church
which they had been taught were essential to their welfare in this
world and in the next. It diverted to the King's treasury the immense
revenues of the Church, and it forced John in self'defense to assure
himself of the loyalty of his barons by taking hostages from those of
whom he had any doubts.
England during the early years of the interdict was a more nearly
Excommunication 165
united nation than at any other time during John's reign. The King
must have presented his case convincingly to his nobles. The endeav-
ors of Innocent III to center the control of the Universal Church,
even in its day-to-day administration, in the hands of the Papal Curia
naturally aroused the resentment and opposition not only of the bish-
ops but also of the barons. The bishops saw their powers gradually
being weakened and their jurisdiction challenged by perpetual ap-
peals over their heads to Rome, but they could make no effective
protest against the Supreme Pontiff from whom their powers were
derived. The barons could more easily arrive at a working under-
standing with the bishops, who were members of their own class,
whom they met frequently in the Great Council, and with whom
they were accustomed to share the administration of the government,
than with prelates in far-off Rome. John and his partisans could
hardly be expected to realize that this centralization of ecclesiastical
administration and strengthening of discipline were greatly to the
benefit of the Church.
This was an age when tradition was greatly respected. Customary
usages had the force of law, and legal forms (because of the great
advances in the formulation of codes of laws and the development of
efficient and comprehensive ways of legal procedure under Henry II
and his sons) appealed strongly to the powerful class of adminis"
trators, a new nobility in themselves, which the increasing complexity
of governmental business was calling into existence. John's side of the
question of the election of Stephen Langton was clear and convincing
to them. Whatever the customary, legal, and valid form for the elec-
tion of the Archbishop of Canterbury might be; whether the minster-
men of Canterbury might elect him, or the bishops of the Southern
Province had the right to elect, or the two together had the right;
whether the King might licitly suggest the man of his choice or not
regardless of all this, one thing was abundantly clear: neither by
custom nor by law could the Pope appoint the Archbishop of Canter-
1 66 [1209-
bury without the King's consent, and none of Innocent's predecessors
had ever claimed such a right. To be sure, they confirmed the choice
once made, by whatever means it had been made, and conferred the
pallium as a mark of their approval, but they did not appoint the
Archbishop.
To say that Stephen Langton had been lawfully and canonically
elected by a handful of Canterbury monks in the intimidating pres-
ence of the Pope and the College of Cardinals would seem to John
and no doubt to most of his nobles mere quibbling. Such an election
was much more a violation of the cherished right of free elections
for which Innocent had fought so hard than was any of those elec-
tions by duly qualified chapters in the presence of the King, to which
the Pope, in his ignorance or deliberate flouting of the ancient Eng-
lish custom, had now objected.
And it was to the ancient English custom that John appealed again
and again. In a letter to the Pope written at about this time, he ex-
pressed his side of the controversy clearly:
ALL my predecessors conferred archbishoprics, bishoprics, and
abbeys in their chamber. As you may read in holy writings, the
blessed and glorious King, St. Edward, conferred the bishopric
of Worcester in his time on St. Wulfstan. When William the
Bastard, the conqueror of England, wanted to deprive him of the
bishopric, because he did not know French, St. Wulfstan re<
plied: "You did not give me my staff, and I will not give it to
you!' He went to the tomb of St. Edward and said in his mother
tongue: "Edward, you gave me my staff, and now on account
of the King I cannot hold it: so I give it into your keeping, and
if you can defend me, do so" He fixed the staff in the tomb of
worked stone, and the staff miraculously adhered to the tomb, so
that only St. Wulfstan was able to -pluck it out again.
-i 2 i 2] Excommunication 167
John had a final argument that must have seemed of great weight
to his council All the nobles of England had suffered at Philip's
hands in one way or another: ^sorne had fought against him in the
many engagements that had been going on almost without interrup-
tion since he came to the throne in 1 180; some had lost lands and
possessions in the final surrender of Normandy in 1205; and all had
contributed to the heavy expense of keeping him at bay. Would they
accept as their Archbishop a man who had gained Philip's favor, en-
joyed his confidence, and shared in his councils? With such a back-
ground, Stephen Langton would seem the last person in whom the
King could trust and on whom he could bestow the lands and
the temporal powers that the Archbishop of Canterbury, as one of
the great tenants-in-chief, enjoyed by virtue of his position.
Against John's obduracy, however, the Pope had a stronger
weapon even than the interdict, one that would cut him off from
his subjects and from all Christian men and deprive him of the sup-
port he had received from his barons. Under the interdict, King and
subjects suffered alike, if indeed a man so completely lacking in any
religious sense as John seems to have been could be said to suffer.
The odium of the interdict fell particularly upon the King, for he was
the cause of it, but the tranquil course of events in England since the
publication of the sentence showed Innocent that John could bear
that odium with ease. The Pope therefore decided, in the autumn
of 1209, to excommunicate John by name and thus pronounce a
sentence that would cut him off from the Church, make it unlawful
for any Christian to associate with him or give him food, drink, or
shelter, and damn him in the world to come.
Innocent ordered William, Bishop of London, Eustace, Bishop
of Ely, and Mauger, Bishop of Worcester, to publish the sentence
of excommunication on every Sunday and feast day in all the con-
ventual churches in England, since these were the only ones in which
1 68 [1209-
Mass could be celebrated. The three bishops, however, had fled to
the Continent after publishing the interdict, and they felt no desire
to return to England on a mission that would further enrage the King
against them. They secured the Pope's permission to delegate the
publication of the sentence to the prelates who remained in England,
but these clerics, "either through fear of the King or through regard
for him/' says Roger of Wendover, thus showing that the sympathies
of some at least of the English clergy were with John, "became like
dumb dogs not daring to bark" and refused to publish the sentence.
The decree was promulgated in France, however, and the news soon
reached England, where "even in the places of assembly of the peo"
pie it afforded a subject of secret conversation to all/'
His excommunication had no notable effect in alienating John's
subjects from him. His Christmas court at Windsor in 1209 was a
particularly brilliant one, attended by all the nobles of England.
Some no doubt came through fear, for John dealt harshly with all
those who showed any signs of disaffection. Others, whose sympathies
were with the King in his struggle with Innocent, salved their con"
sciences with the pretext that since the sentence had not been pub-
lished in England they were not bound to observe it. Yet a third
group, the intimate friends and companions of the King, were of the
same irreligious temper as their master and paid little heed to the
sentence.
The excommunication, however, brought out some of John's
worst qualities. He had spent most of his life in an atmosphere of
suspicion, distrust, and treachery, and it was natural that he should
suspect all about him of treachery. Morbidly suspicious, he began to
feel that every man's hand was against him. If, which is doubtful, he
had ever had any hope of saving his soul, assuming that John believed
that he had a soul and that it could be saved, this hope was dashed to
the ground when the Supreme Pontiff cursed him in all his doings,
in this world and the next. No man of God could give him good
i2i 2] Excommunication 169
counsel, for the higher clergy remaining in the realm were his crea^
tures, submissive to his will, and the lower clergy could not reach
his ear. Publicly cut off from the Church, John publicly flouted the
canons of morality. Cruelty and avarice began to appear more openly
in his deeds, but the cruelty put the fear of him into his nobles and
repressed any inclinations they may have felt towards disloyalty and
treachery, and the avarice extorted from his victims sums that would
otherwise have been raised by the regular means of taxation.
Roger of Wendover tells two stories that illustrate the cruelty and
avarice that characterized John's conduct at this time. After the news
of the King's excommunication reached England, a certain Geoffrey,
an official of the Exchequer, began to talk to his fellow clerks at
Westminster about the sentence and expressed the opinion that no
one, and least of all a beneficed cleric, might with impunity remain
in the service of an excommunicated person. Through these scruples
of conscience he left the Exchequer without permission and stayed at
home. When John learned of his absence and the reason for it, he
sent William Talbot, one of his knights, with some soldiers to Geof"
frey's house to arrest him and put him in prison. After he had been in
prison for a few days, a heavy sheet of lead in the form of a cope, out
of deference to his clerical character, was put about him. He was
given no food, and at length he died. This was generally felt to be a
cruel punishment, even for a treasury official.
The Jews enjoyed the King's special protection, as he took pains
to point out as early as 1203 in the following letter:
THE KING ETC. to the Mayor and Barons of London ETC.
We have always loved you greatly, and we have made your laws
and liberties to be well observed, wherefore we believe that you
love us in a special way and freely wish to do those things that of"
feet our honor and the peace and tranquillity of our land. Never*
theless, since you know that the Jews are under our special pro*
170 /J209-
tection, we are amazed that you allow harm to be done to the
Jews dwelling in the city of London, for this is manifestly against
the peace of the realm and the tranquillity of our land. We are
all the more amazed and concerned, because the other Jews
throughout England, wherever they dwell, except those in your
city, enjoy good peace. Nor are we concerned only for the Jews,
but also for our peace, for if we gave our peace to a dog, it ought
to be inviolably observed. Henceforth, then, we commit the
Jews dwelling in the city of London to your custody, so that if
anyone tries to harm them, you may all together help them and
defend them, for we shall require their blood of your hands, if
perchance any harm befalls them, which Qod forbid. We well
know that these things happen through the foolish people of the
town and not through the wise ones, but wise men should re-
strain the folly of the foolish. MYSELF AS WITNESS, at Mont-
ford, on the zgth day of July.
In return for this protection, the Jews* financial affairs were under
the direct supervision of the Exchequer. Although this status shielded
them to some extent from popular persecution, the King's knowledge
of their transactions made it easy for him to wring money from them.
John embarked on a series of extortions early in 1210, and Roger of
Wendover says that he caused all the Jews in England, of both sexes,
to be seized, imprisoned, and harshly tortured, in order to squeeze
all the money possible from them. The head of the Jewish commu-
nity at Bristol refused, even after being tortured, to pay anything,
whereupon John ordered his agents to knock out one of the Jew's
jaw-teeth every day till he paid ten thousand marks. After the Jew
had thus lost seven teeth, he capitulated on die eighth day and paid
the required sum.
John was strengthened in his opposition to Innocent by the influ-
ence of Master Alexander the Mason, a pseudo-theologian, as Roger
Excommunication 171
of Wendover describes him. Master Alexander preached to John the
comforting doctrine that the great scourge of the interdict had been
brought upon England not through any fault of his own but because
of the wickedness of the people, whom God intended to punish by
this means. His new spiritual advisor assured John that he had been
sent by God to rule his people with a rod of iron, to break them all
in pieces like a potter's vessel, and to bind the noble and the power-
ful with iron shackles.
Venturing next into the fields of theology and canon law, Master
Alexander took up the subject of the extent of the papal authority, a
matter much discussed then in view of the extravagant claims ad-
vanced by Innocent III. Master Alexander declared that the Pope
had no power over the lay estates of any ruler or over the government
of that ruler's subjects. The Pope's authority, he said, was limited
solely to the Church and its property: that was the extent of the
power Our Lord had conferred on St. Peter and his successors.
Such doctrine was exactly what John wanted to hear, and the
man who preached it stood high in his favor. The King had com-
mand of a great many benefices that he had acquired in the general
confiscation of 1208, and he bestowed a number of them upon Mas-
ter Alexander.
The Lacy family, with the two brothers Walter and Hugh Lords
of Meath and of Ulster respectively, had become the most powerful
in Ireland, and John was by no means certain of their fidelity. His
distrust was increased by the fact that Walter de Lacy, the Lord of
Meath, had given shelter to his father-in-law, William de Braose,
when he fled from England in 1208,
The older generation, with whom John had had dealings during
his first visit to Ireland, had pretty well died out and been succeeded
by a new one, not quite so lawless but almost equally turbulent. Rory
O'Connor, the last High King of Ireland, had died a peaceful death
at his abbey of Cong in 1 199. The native Irish princes were gradu-
172 /"I209-
ally being pushed farther and farther to the west and were being sup-
planted by the Norman nobility, who quarreled and fought among
themselves with all the enthusiasm the Irish had formerly displayed.
John had sent his cousin Meiler FitzHenry, a bastard son of
Henry I by the notorious Nesta, daughter of the King of South
Wales, to Ireland as his justiciar in 1 200. Meiler's term of office was
a difficult and troubled one. John de Courci, the conqueror of Ulster,
defied Meiler's authority and was engaged in almost constant war
with Hugh de Lacy. Hugh eventually drove John out, and the King
made him Earl of Ulster in 1205. Hugh then turned against Meiler,
and he and his brother waged open war against the justiciar. William
de Burgh, who was engaged in the conquest of Connaught, was an-
other trouble-maker, but Meiler succeeded in depriving him of his
estates.
In 1 208 the Lacy brothers finally drove Meiler FitzHenry out
of the country. John replaced him with John Grey, Bishop of Nor-
wich, but his talents were administrative rather than military, and the
power of the Lacys was unchecked. With the object of asserting his
supremacy in Ireland, curtailing the power of the Lacy's, assuring
himself of the fealty of the Anglo-Norman nobles and the Irish
princes, and placing the country under the supervision of a man he
could trust, John determined on an expedition to the island.
He sailed from Pembroke with a large army in seven hundred
vessels and landed in Ireland on June 6, 1210. When he reached
Dublin, more than twenty of the Irish chieftains hastened to do hom-
age and swear fealty to him. He reduced a number of the Irish cas-
tles and led his army into the County of Meath. William de Braose
had already escaped to Wales when he learned of John's expedition,
leaving his wife and eldest son in Meath. Walter and Hugh de Lacy
fled to Scotland and thence to France. The King besieged the castle
in which Maude de Braose and her son had taken refuge, captured
the castle, and confiscated the Lacy lands. Maude and her son Wil*
Excommunication 173
Ham, who was a grown man, fled to Scotland. Duncan of Carrick
captured them in Galloway and turned them over to John. He sent
them back to England, loaded with chains, and had them confined
in Windsor Castle. Maude, by accusing John of the murder of Ar-
thur, had aroused his implacable wrath, and he had her and her son
starved to death at Windsor.
William Marshal had married Isabella de Clare, the daughter and
heiress of Strongbow, and thus succeeded to his enormous estates in
Ireland, chief among which was the lordship of Leinster. He went
over to see his Irish lands for the first time in 1 207, but before he
would let him go, John forced him to surrender all his castles in Eng-
land and to leave his son Richard as a hostage for his fidelity, which
only a mind like John's could ever dream of suspecting. William,
too, had a great deal of trouble with Meiler FitzHenry, who tried to
deprive him of some of his lands.
When William de Braose and his family fled to Ireland, William
Marshal sheltered them for twenty days when they first landed, be-
fore they went on to the Lacys. John reproached William for having
given refuge to his mortal enemy.
"Sire/* William replied, "I sheltered my lord when he came to my
castle in great trouble. If I took care of him when he was in distress,
you should not take it in bad part. I did not think that I was doing
anything wrong, for he was my friend and my lord (Marshal held
land of Braose in England), and I did not know that you had any-
thing against him. You were good friends when I left England to
come here. Now if anyone except you wants to say that there is any-
thing more to the matter than this, I am ready to defend myself ac"
cording to the judgment of your court/*
John grudgingly accepted William's explanation, but he took a
number of his knights as hostages.
With the able assistance of John Grey, the King set about reor-
ganizing die administration of Ireland and bringing it into conform-
174
ity with the efficient English model He promulgated English laws
and customs and appointed sheriffs and other officials to govern ac"
cording to those laws. He established a coinage uniform with that of
England and had pennies, halfpennies, and round farthings minted,
stamped with the image of a harp. In England the only coin minted
was still the silver penny, which was halved and quartered to make
halfpennies and farthings.
John left the Bishop of Norwich as his justiciar in Ireland and,
after arranging affairs there to his satisfaction, returned to England on
August 29. This had been a brilliant expedition, capably managed,
which accomplished all that John intended it should and ensured the
tranquillity and good government of Ireland for a number of years.
Whilst John was in Ireland, his first legitimate daughter, Joan,
was born, on July 22.
Immediately after his return, John ordered all the prelates remain*
ing in England to meet him in London. When they had assembled,
he wrung money from them unmercifully. The White Monks alone
were forced to pay forty thousand marks. By the rules of their Order,
they could possess no money, and John took delight in forcing this
observance upon them.
John's ally, Otto, meanwhile, was openly breaking his promises
to Innocent with regard to the lands the Pope had annexed in central
Italy. In August 1210, he attacked Tuscany, and in November he
embarked on the conquest of Apulia. He made no secret of his deter"
mination to conquer Sicily and unite it to the Empire, a policy which
Innocent had steadfastly opposed. Otto paid no attention to the
Pope's warnings, and in November 1210, Innocent excommuni*
cated him, released his subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and
began working with Philip of France in trying to stir up a revolt
against Otto in Germany.
The King spent the Christmas of 12 10 at York, where the earls
Excommunication 175
and barons gathered for his court. The properties of the archbish-
opric had been in the King's hands since Geoffrey had fled from
England.
During the spring of 121 1 John busied himself with preparations
for an expedition into North Wales. Llywelyn ap lorwerth, who
had married John's bastard daughter, also named Joan, in 1206, had
been extending his influence over most of Wales, and John was un-
willing that any one Welsh chieftain should have such power as his
son-in-law was assuming. If Wales could not be brought directly
under English control, it was better that the country, whose moun'
tainous terrain made conquest and peaceful administration particu"
larly difficult, should be ruled by a number of smaller chieftains
whose wranglings among themselves might divert their energies from
attacks on the English borders.
John assembled his army at Whitchurch and marched into Wales
on July 8, 121 1 . He penetrated as far as the Snowdon district and
routed the Welsh forces. He captured the city of Bangor and burned
it, and he seized the Bishop of Bangor, who had defied him on ac-
count of his excommunication. Llywelyn was forced to sue for
peace, and he sent his wife to her father to try to secure honorable
terms for him. Then Llywelyn came to John and made his submis-
sion. The King deprived him of most of his lands, asserted the Eng-
lish supremacy over North Wales, and took twenty-eight young men
of noble birth as hostages, to secure the good behavior of the Welsh
in the future.
John's position was now strong indeed. He had in three successive
campaigns forced Scotland, Ireland, and Wales into submission,
which not even his father had been able to do, and he had nothing
to fear from any of those countries. 'There was no one who did not
obey his nod," says the Barnwell annalist. Consequently, when mes-
sengers from the Pope came to discuss the possibility of making peace,
176
John could take a high stand. From Wales he had returned to Whit-
church, and from there he went to Northampton, where he met the
Pope's emissaries on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, i zi i .
Innocent had sent Pandulf, a sub'deacon of the Papal Curia, and
Durand, a Templar, to see if they could effect a reconciliation, for it
was now obvious that none of the measures Innocent had yet devised
was sufficient to bring John to submission. Indeed, he had waxed
more powerful under the interdict and excommunication than he had
ever been before, and the deadlock promised to continue indefinitely.
After discussing the matter with the messengers and with the Great
Council, which he had summoned to Northampton, John declared
his willingness to allow Stephen Langton and all the bishops who
had sought refuge on the Continent to return to England, with the
implication that it did not much matter whether they stayed abroad
or came back* England had got along very well without them and
could probably get along just as well with them.
John was adamant on one point, however: he refused to make any
compensation to them for the financial losses they had incurred or to
return to them any of the past revenues from the sees and benefices
that had fallen to the Crown. He was willing to restore their tem-
poral fiefs to the clergy, but he would not deliver to them the income
that had accrued from those fiefs since the interdict had been pro-
nounced. That money had already been collected and spent, a great
deal of it in the form of subsidies to his allies on the Continent. With
this message the envoys returned to the Pope.
At this council at Northampton die King levied a scutage of two
marks on each knight's fee, to be paid by those who had not done
military service in the campaign in Wales.
John welcomed to England at about this time a powerful ally,
Reginald of Dammartin, Count of Boulogne. Reginald was one of
the greatest vassals of Philip of France. Through his wife, Ida, the
heiress of Boulogne, he had received that county, with its ports of
Excommunication 177
Calais and Boulogne. In addition, Philip had given him John's for-
mer county of Mortain and that of Aumale, and Reginald's daugh-
ter and heiress, Maude, was betrothed to Philip's son by Agnes of
Meran, Philip Hurepel. It is eloquent testimony to the strength of
John's position at this time that so wise and experienced a statesman
as Reginald should have decided that his chances were better as an
ally of John than as a vassal of Philip and that he should have sided
openly with the English King. When Philip learned of Reginald's
connection with John, he marched against his vassal and drove him
out of France. Reginald took refuge in England and set about help-
ing John build up his alliances on the Continent with all those who
feared or distrusted Philip's growing power. John gave the Count of
Boulogne three hundred pounds a year, and Reginald did homage
and swore fealty to him.
William de Braose, who had contrived to escape to France in the
preceding year, died at Corbeuil on August 9, i z 1 1 and was buried
in Paris. Stephen Langton officiated at the funeral, a gesture that
could hardly have endeared him to John.
Innocent's envoys, Pandulf and Durand, had in the meantime re-
turned to Rome and reported the results of their interview with the
King. The Pope would be satisfied with nothing less than complete
submission on John's part, and a mere granting of permission for the
exiled prelates to return to England, without any recompense for their
confiscated revenues, was not enough. It was obvious that no one
was paying much attention to the sentence of excommunication laid
on John. The Pope therefore sought to ensure its observance by ex*
tending it to all who associated with the King "at the table, in coun-
cil, or in conversation/' Finally, he absolved John's subjects from
their oaths of fealty and allegiance to the King, so that they were no
longer bound in conscience to obey him. This sentence, again, could
not be published in England, but news of it traveled across the Chan-
nel and soon reached the ears of John's subjects.
178 /I209-
The King spent the Christmas of 1211 at Windsor. The Pipe
Roll records the purchase, for the Christmas feast, of 60 pounds of
pepper, 1 8 pounds of cumin, half a pound of galingale (the aromatic
root of a variety of sedge), three pounds of cinnamon, one pound of
cloves, half a pound of nutmeg, two pounds of ginger, 10,000 her-
rings, r, 800 whitings, 900 haddocks, and 3,000 lampreys, as well
as 1,500 cups, 1,200 pitchers, and 4,000 plates. The breakage at
one of these royals feasts must have heen considerable.
The gallant Constable of Chester, Roger de Lacy, died in January
1 21 2. When CMteau'Gaillard fell on March 8, 1204, Philip of
France held Roger for a heavy ransom. John contributed a thousand
pounds for his release. When Roger returned to England, John made
him Sheriff of Yorkshire and of Cheshire to reward him for his he-
roic defense of Richard's stronghold. He served as a justiciar and was
one of John's intimate friends.
On Easter Sunday, March 4, 1212, John gave a great feast at St.
Bridget's Clerkenwell, and whilst he was at table he knighted the
young Alexander, the son of William the Lion of Scotland.
During this summer John had the first dockyard built at Ports-
mouth, as the following letter shows:
THE KING to the Sheriff of Southampton, ETC. We order you
without delay to have our dock at Portsmouth closed with a good
strong wall, by the view of lawful men, as our beloved and faith*
ful servant, William, Archdeacon of Taunton, tells you, to safe-
guard our galleys and ships; and have additions made to the same
wall, as the same Archdeacon tells you, in which all the appurte-
nances of our ships may be safely kept. And make haste to do
these things this summer, lest through your fault in the coming
winter we suffer any damage to our ships and galleys and their ap-
purtenances. And when we learn the cost, we will have it ac-
1 2Z2J Excommunication 179
counted to you. MYSELF AS WITNESS, at the Tower of London,
on the zoth day of May.
Mauger, the exiled Bishop of Worcester, died at Pontigny in
France on July i .
On the night of July 10 the Church of St. Mary in Southwark
caught fire, and the conflagration quickly spread over the south side
of the river. The new stone bridge across the Thames, which had
been begun in 1 176 and which was to stand for over six hundred
years* had been finished in 1209, and wooden houses, as well as a
chapel dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, had been built on it.
The fire spread to them and thus crossed to the north side of the
river. Houses at this time were almost all built of wood, and even
the few stone houses were thatched with straw or reeds. Conse'
quently there was nothing to stop the blaze, and it swept over the
greater part of London. Many lives were lost; Matthew Paris esti'
mates that a thousand people perished in the fire.
London had already acquired a reputation as a wicked metropo"
lis. This is how Richard of Devizes describes it:
EVERY sort of man from every country under the heavens crowds
together there; each race brings its own vices and its own cus"
toms to the city. No one lives there free from crime; every quar*
ter of the city abounds in grave scandals; that man is counted
greatest who most excels in rascality. . . . Whatever is evil or
malicious in any part of the world, you will find it in this one city.
Do not approach the chorus of pimps; do not mingle with the
crowds in eating houses; avoid dice and gambling, the theater
and the tavern. You will meet with more braggarts there than in
all France; the number of parasites is infinite. Actors, jesters,
smooth-skinned lads, Moors, flatterers, pretty boys, effeminates.
i 8 o /"i209-
pederasts, singing girls, quacks, belly-dancers, sorceresses, extor-
tioners, night wanderers, magicians, mimes, beggars, buffoons:
all this tribe fill all the houses/*
Although Llywelyn ap lorwerth had in the previous year bound
himself to keep the peace, during the summer of i z i z he broke forth
again from his hiding places in North Wales. The Welsh captured
and destroyed the castles John had built to guard the border, killed
the garrisons, and burned several towns. The King hastily called to-
gether an army to subdue them. When he reached Nottingham,
without stopping to eat or drink, he ordered the twenty-eight young
hostages that he had taken the year before to be hanged on the gibbet
forthwith.
With the hanging of the hostages out of the way, John sat down
to dinner. Whilst he was at table two messengers came, bearing let-
ters from William the Lion and from Joan, the wife of Llywelyn.
The purport of the letters was identical; both warned him that his
nobles were plotting against him and that if he persisted in his expe-
dition to Wales some of his disaffected barons would either kill him
or deliver him over to the Welsh for destruction.
John was so alarmed by these letters that he immediately aban-
doned the campaign against the Welsh and dismissed his army with
the following letter:
THE KING to all his earls and barons who see this letter, ETC.
We thank you because you have come in such force to Chester
in our service, but we cannot go there at present, because certain
affairs of ours call us back. And therefore we command you to
return to your own parts with the knights and people you brought
with you, and we will multiply our thanks to you. MYSELF AS
WITNESS, at Nottingham, on die i6th day of August, in the
1 4th year of our reign.
-I2iz] Excommunication i 8 i
He again sent messengers to all the nobles he distrusted to demand
hostages of them, and he did not attempt to disguise his distrust, as
the following letter to the Earl of Huntingdon shows:
THE KING to Earl David: WHATEVER GREETING is DUE TO
YOU. You have delivered your son to us as a hostage for your
faithful service. And now we command you, as soon as you see
this letter, to deliver up our castle of Fotheringhay to our faithful
servants, Simon of Pattishull and Walter of Preston, for our use.
Although he had just given a demonstration of how he might treat
the hostages of those who were unfaithful to him, none of his nobles
dared to refuse him, and they sent their sons, brothers, nephews, or
other relatives to him as pledges of their loyalty.
Two men, however, fled the kingdom and thus tacitly announced
their treasonable designs. Eustace de Vesci, who had married Map
garet, the bastard daughter of William the Lion, took refuge in Scot"
land, and Robert FitzWalter fled to France.
For die first time since the imposition of the interdict we hear of
widespread discontent and disaffection among the barons. They had
sided, for the most part, with John in his struggle with the Pope, and
the confiscation of the ecclesiastical revenues had lifted the burden of
taxation from them. The scutage of i zi i to pay for the Welsh cam"
paign was the first general tax John had levied since he seized die
Church lands. With the enforced absence from John's councils of
the bishops and abbots, who may on the whole be presumed to have
exercised a moderating influence, the King became increasingly stern
and repressive. He distrusted everyone except his most intimate
friends, and his major concern was so to increase his power that he
could hold his barons in check in any eventuality. Stern repression,
the taking of hostages, the punishment of individual malcontents by
crushing fines or the confiscation of their lands, and other measures
i 8 2 [1209-
to enforce the support of a sullen and disaffected baronage were ef-
fective only as long as the barons remained divided and found no
common cause to unite them. That they were beginning to attempt
concerted action is indicated by the events of this summer. Although
John could find no evidence of the existence of the plot against which
he had been warned, it is probable that, at the least, the idea of some
form of united action was being discussed by the more discontented
among his barons.
Roger of Wendover gives three principal reasons for the rising
feeling against John. In the first place, he charges, the King had vio-
lated the wives and daughters of many of his nobles. Matthew Paris
and later writers repeat this accusation. John's private life was un-
doubtedly bad, and he seems to have been quite lacking in any sense
of morality.
The second charge is that John had reduced many of his nobles to
poverty by his unjust exactions. His need of money was great. The
cost of the normal administrative operations of the government, to
which was added the heavy burden of accounting for the Church
lands, was constantly increasing, and, furthermore, John had waged
three military campaigns in three successive summers. He was, more-
over, sending large subsidies to his nephew Otto and to his other allies
on the Continent. Against these extraordinary expenditures and in
addition to the normal revenues, John had received the income from
the Church properties, the levies upon the Jews and the clergy in
1 2 10, and the confiscated estates of those who, like William de
Braose, Eustace de Vesci, and Robert FitzWalter, had fled the coun^
try. In his need for money, John was no doubt driven to laying heavy
fines, abusing his rights of wardship, and exacting disproportionately
large reliefs when the heirs of tenants-in-chief entered upon their hold-
ings. The Pipe Rolls for this period abound in entries of quite large
sums of money paid "to have the King's good wiir by various indi-
viduals who had aroused John's wrath by one means or another. In
-I2I2J Excommunication 183
many cases these payments probably represent purely arbitrary sums
demanded by the King. Robert de Vaux, for instance, got himself
involved with another man's wife, and John found out about it. Rob-
ert had to give him five of the best palfreys "that the King may keep
silent regarding Henry Pinel's wife/' and he had to pay 750 marks
"to have the King's good will/'
The third charge against John arises from the second. Roger of
Wendover states that many nobles were opposed to the King be*
cause he had exiled their parents or kindred and confiscated their es-
tates. This seems to have been especially true at the beginning of the
interdict, when the King expelled from the country not only the
clergy whose loyalty he doubted but also their relatives, and confis-
cated their estates.
In short, says Roger of Wendover, the King had as many enemies
as he had nobles. When they learned that the Pope had released them
from their oaths of allegiance to John, it was reported that they sent a
letter to Philip of France and invited him to invade England, seize
the kingdom, and be crowned "with all honor and dignity/' On the
other hand, however, at this same time twenty-seven of the leading
Anglo-Norman noblemen in Ireland, headed by the ever-faithful
William Marshal, sent a signed declaration to John, assuring him
that they were "ready to live or die with the King and that they would
faithfully and inseparably cleave to him until the very end."
All these discontents were fanned by the preachings of Peter of
Pontefract, a Yorkshire hermit, who was popularly believed to have
the gift of prophecy. He declared that John would not be King on
the next Ascension Day or afterwards, for on that day the crown
would pass to another. This prophecy was circulated throughout
the kingdom and excited a great deal of interest. When John heard
of it he had Peter brought before him and asked the hermit whether
he meant that the King would die on that day or whether he would
be deposed.
184
"Rest assured that on Ascension Day you will not be King/' Peter
replied. "If I am proved to have told a lie, do what you will with me
then"
"Be it as you say," said John, and he had Peter put into prison in
Corfe Castle to await the outcome of his prophecy.
At about this time, and certainly before the summer of iziz,
John sent an embassy to Muhammad al-Nasir, Sultan of Morocco, to
endeavor to enlist his help. John had been working unceasingly
to build up a coalition against Philip of France sufficiently strong to
counterbalance his growing power and, if possible, destroy it. The
allies were headed by the Emperor Otto and included many of the
strongest nobles whose territories lay to the northeast and east of Phil"
ip's. Their plans were now sufficiently advanced for them to have
agreed upon the strategy of their attack. That plan was for their
forces, when they felt that they were strong enough, to attack Philip
on the northeast whilst John at the same time struck from the south,
through Poitou. The weakness of the plan was that John could not be
sure of assembling an army large enough to offer a serious threat to
Philip from the south. He could not depend on his English barons to
follow him to the Continent, and the Poitevin nobles were treacher'
ous and unreliable. Ever since the battle of Alarcos in 1 1 96 the Mus*
lims had been the dominant military power in Northern Spain, and it
occurred to John to see if he could induce them to help him.
Matthew Paris says that John sent three messengers, the knights
Thomas Hardington and Ralph FitzNicholas and the monk Robert
of London, to cc Murmelius, the great king of Africa, Morocco, and
Spain/* Murmelius is a corruption of Amir-al'Muminim, Prince of
the Faithful, a title of the Emir of Cordova, later assumed by the Sul'
tan of Morocco. The Sultan at this time was Muhammad al'Nasir,
who had succeeded his father, the victor of Alarcos, in 1 199. John
offered, in exchange for his help, to give up himself and his kingdom
Excommunication 185
to the Sultan, to hold as a tributary from him, to renounce Christian-
ity, and to embrace Islam.
The weak point of the embassy was that John had little to offer
the Sultan in exchange for his help* His financial difficulties, already
aggravated by the drain of payments to the members of the coalition,
would not permit him to purchase Muslim aid. John hit then on the
only offer in which he thought the Sultan would be interested. Prom-
ises came easily to him, and it was easy to promise to do homage to
the Sultan and to become a Muslim. After all, John had little reason
to call himself a Christian and still less to value the name. It may
have appealed to his wry sense of humor to offer to put his kingdom,
in which the Pope had forbidden all religious services for the last
four years, under the protection of an infidel.
The Sultan questioned the messengers about their master. They
described him as grayheaded, strong in body, stoutly built, and not
tall. (As a matter of fact, when John's tomb was opened in 1797, his
skeleton was found to measure five feet, five inches.) The Sultan dis-
missed John's offer, probably on the grounds that he could see no
advantage in accepting it and that he needed all his strength for the ap-
proaching conflict with Alfonso VIII of Castile. The fact that Mu-
hammad al-Nasir was crushingly defeated by Alfonso at the battle of
Las Navas on July 1 6, 1212 makes it unlikely that this embassy was
sent after that time.
After the Sultan had dismissed the ambassadors, he called Robert
of London back to him and questioned him more closely. Robert told
him, reports Matthew Paris, that John was a tyrant rather than a
king, a destroyer rather than a governor, an oppressor of his people
and a friend to foreigners, a lion to his subjects and a lamb to foreign-
ers and to his enemies. He was an insatiable extorter of money and
an invader and destroyer of his subjects* possessions. He hated his wife
and was hated by her. The Queen, Robert informed the Sultan, was
i 8 6 /"i209-
an incestuous, evfl*disposed, and adulterous woman. She had often
been unfaithful to the King, and he had had some of her lovers
strangled with a rope on her very bed. He was envious of many of his
nobles and had violated their daughters and sisters, and he was waver"
ing and lax in the observance of his religion.
Matthew Paris got all of this from Robert of London himself. The
King made him Abbot of St. Albans, where Matthew Paris later was
a monk. It should be remembered, however, that the chronicler did
not begin writing till twenty years after John's death.
Johns distrust of his Queen shows up curiously in an order pro-
viding her with pages:
THE KING, to Ralph Raleigh and Geoffrey de Martigny. We
are sending the two sons of Richard of Umframville, Odinell and
Robert, to you. We command you to have them serve before the
Lady Queen at her dinner every day, but their tutor is not to come
before the Lady Queen. And have them sleep at night in the
hall, and have them taken care of honorably. WITNESSED BY
THE KING, at Durham, on the 3rd day of September.
The two lads named in this letter were among the four sons that
Richard had to deliver to the King as hostages "for his faithful serv-
ice/* as well as his castle of Prudhoe.
CHAPTER XI 5k?
SUBMISSION
I2I2-I2I4
N THE autumn of 1212 Archbishop Stephen Langton
and the Bishops of London and Ely went to Rome to discuss
the situation in England with die Pope. England had now been
under the interdict for four and a half years, and the public religious
life of the country was virtually extinct. Neither the interdict of the
country nor the personal excommunication of the King had brought
John to terms; the absolution of his subjects from their vows of fealty
had provided some encouragement to the more discontented of the
barons, but it had failed to shake John's strong grasp on the kingdom*
One measure remained, and that the Pope, after consulting with his
cardinals and bishops, decided to use. He decreed that John should be
deposed from his throne and that "another, more worthy than he, to
be chosen by the Pope, should succeed him/' as Roger of Wendover
reports.
1 88 [1212-
Innocent entrusted the congenial task of deposing John to Philip
of France and promised him that he and his successors should have
perpetual possession of the kingdom of England. The Pope gave the
projected expedition against John the character of a crusade by writ"
ing to various prominent men who were known to be John's enemies
and urging them to assume the Cross and follow Philip in this holy
war.
Pandulf was present when the Pope and his counsellors reached
this decision. Innocent ordered him to return to France with the
English ecclesiastics and see that the papal commands were obeyed.
Pandulf privately asked Innocent what should be done in case John
repented and showed his willingness to come to terms. The Pope
then dictated a set of conditions and promised that if John would
agree to them the whole matter might be settled without resorting to
the drastic measure of invading England.
Whilst these affairs were being arranged at the papal court, Geof"
frey, the exiled Archbishop of York, died in Normandy on Decenv
ber 1 8, 1212. His life as Archbishop had been marred by unceaS"
ing squabbles, quarrels, and lawsuits with the clergy and magnates
of his diocese, the canons of his cathedral, who seem to have been a
particularly stubborn and intractable group, the bishops of his prov
itice, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the King. One prefers to
remember him as the only faithful one among Henry's sons, gentle,
loyal, and loving to his father on the King's deathbed, staying with
him when all the rest had deserted and betrayed him.
John kept his Christmas at Westminster, attended by only a few
of his nobles. His open confession at Nottingham during the preced"
ing summer that he feared and distrusted his barons seems to have
weakened his hold over them, for this was the first time that many
of them dared to absent themselves from his court.
The three English bishops came to Philip in January 1213, with
the welcome tidings that the Pope had authorized him to invade
Submission 189
England and deprive John of his crown, and Philip started laying his
plans.
John heard of the contemplated invasion of his realm, and he be'
gan to prepare to defend the country against attack. On March 3,
from the New Temple, he sent letters to the bailiffs of the seaport
towns, beginning: "We command you that immediately on receiv-
ing these our letters you go in person, together with the bailiffs of the
ports, to each of the harbors in your bailiwick and make a careful list
of all the ships there found capable of carrying six horses or more;
and that, in our name, you order the masters as well as the owners of
those ships, as they regard themselves, their ships, and all their prop"
erty, to have them at Portsmouth at mid-Lent, well equipped with
stores, tried seamen, and good soldiers, to enter into our service for
our deliverance/*
To his sheriffs John ordered: "Give warning by good agents to
the earls, barons, knights, and all free and serving men, whoever they
may be, that they be at Dover at the end of the coming Lent,
equipped with horses and arms and all they can provide, to defend
our person and themselves and the land of England, and let no one
who can carry arms remain behind under penalty of being branded
with cowardice and of being condemned to perpetual slavery; and
let each man follow his lord."
This was the true voice of an English king, calling his English-
men to defend their land, lest they be called "nithing" by their fel-
lows. His barons, standing on the letter of the law, might refuse to
follow their King across the Narrow Seas in an attempt to recapture
his continental dominions, but at the threat of invasion the host as-
sembled as it had in the days of Alfred. When the appointed time
came, an enormous army met at Barham Down, near Canterbury.
Men poured in from every part of England. Bishop John Grey and
William Marshal arrived from Ireland with five hundred knights
and a body of horse soldiers, practically the whole knight-service due
I 9O
from Ireland. These forces, says Roger of Wendover, were made up
of "men of divers conditions and ages, who dreaded nothing more
than the name of coward/'
The King dispatched forces to Ipswich, Dover, Feversham, and
other threatened ports. The remainder was so great that provisions
failed, and John had to send some of the more inexperienced men
back home. The main body, estimated at sixty thousand, he kept in
readiness at Barham Down. "Had they been of one heart and one dis-
position towards the King of England and in defense of their coun-
try," remarks Roger of Wendover in a fine burst of patriotism, "there
was not a prince under heaven against whom they could not have de-
fended the Kingdom of England," The fleet assembled at Portsmouth
was relatively even stronger than the land forces.
Philip meanwhile assembled his council at Soissons on April 8.
The English bishops read the papal mandate deposing John and in-
viting Philip to be the instrument of that deposition. The council
accepted the invitation, and Philip ordered his fleet to assemble at
Boulogne and his army to gather at Rouen on April 21 . To put the
final touch to his novel position as the champion of Holy Church,
Philip had Ingeborg released from her long imprisonment and ef-
fected a reconciliation with her.
While the two forces were thus poised, Philip ready to strike at
England and John in full strength awaiting the threatened invasion,
the sub-deacon Pandulf made one last attempt to persuade John to
submit. He sent two Brothers of the Temple across the Channel to
Dover. They came to John and told him that they had been sent by
Pandulf to ask for an interview in which he might propose a form
of peace whereby the King could be reconciled to God and the
Church.
John, who would rather negotiate than fight, ordered the Tern-
plars to return to France and bring Pandulf to him. The Pope's fa-
miliar landed at Dover on May 13 and went at once to John, He
Submission igi
warned the King that Philip had assembled an enormous army and
fleet, which the exiled clerics and fugitive Englishmen had joined, to
expel him from England by force. John was well aware, through his
spies, of the size of Philip's forces and knew that his navy, at any
rate, was far superior to the French fleet. The words that struck ter-
ror to his heart were Pandulfs warning, which John had some reason
to believe true, that Philip had had letters from almost all the nobles
of England offering their fealty and support. Pandulf exhorted John
to be as penitent as if he were on his deathbed, submit himself to
the Church, and make his peace with God.
John capitulated; the long struggle was over.
Roger of Wendover gives four principal reasons for the King's
"repentance and atonement/* First, he says, John had been under
excommunication for over three years and had so offended God and
the Church that he had given up all hope of saving his soul. This
probably had little weight with the King; there is nothing to indicate
that John could not have borne up quite cheerfully under the sentence
of excommunication for the rest of his life.
The second reason was his fear of Philip, who, with a great army,
was planning his downfall.
The third, and this is probably the heart of the matter, was that
John was afraid to meet Philip in battle for fear that his own nobles
would either abandon him in the field or deliver him up to Philip.
They were rotten with treachery, as later events were to prove, and
John knew it.
The last reason illustrates the strong superstition that took the
place of religion in John's hardened heart; more alarming than all the
rest, says the chronicler, was the fact that Ascension Day was draw
ing near, when the prophecy of the hermit Peter foretold that he
would lose his crown. Peter was in prison, awaiting the outcome of
his prediction, and it was widely believed that events would prove
him to be right.
192
John made his submission at Dover on this same day, May 1 3,
1213, in the presence of his earls and barons and a great gathering
of people. He swore to abide by the commands of the Pope in all
the matters for which he had been excommunicated; to give peace
and full safety to Archbishop Stephen Langton, the exiled Bishops
of London, Ely, Hereford, Bath, and Lincoln, the prior and monks
of Canterbury, Robert FitzWalter and Eustace de Vesci, and all the
rest of the clergy and laity connected with the affair; not to hurt them
in person or in property; to receive them into his favor, and not to
hinder them in the performance of their duties and the exercise of
their full authority.
In return, the Archbishop and bishops were to give security on
oath and in writing that they would not make any attempt against
John's person or crown as long as he afforded them safety and kept
the peace.
John promised furthermore to make full restitution for their con-
fiscated property to both clergy and laity that were concerned in this
matter, to release and restore to their full rights all men he had im-
prisoned in this affair, to remove the sentence of outlawry against the
ecclesiastics and laymen involved, never again to pronounce the sen-
tence of outlawry against the clergy, and to restore all that he had re-
ceived from ecclesiastics since the beginning of the interdict, except
the customary and lawful dues.
As a pledge of his good intentions, John promised that as soon as
someone empowered to absolve him arrived he would deliver to the
messengers of the exiled clerics the sum of eight thousand pounds to
defray their immediate expenses. If any question arose as to die
amount of the compensation due, John agreed that it was to be set-
tled by the Pope's legate; matters that could not be so settled were
to be referred to the Pope, by whose decision John promised to
abide. When all these matters were settled, the interdict was to be
lifted.
Submission 193
The charter setting forth these provisions was witnessed by Earl
William of Salisbury, Count Reginald of Boulogne, Earl William
of Warenne, and Earl William of Ferrars, who swore on the King's
soul that he would keep the terms of the agreement.
Reginald was one of the greatest of John's foreign allies; the re-
maining three witnesses belonged to the small group of the King's
most trusted and loyal friends. William "Longsword," Earl of Salis*
bury, was a bastard of Henry II by an unknown mother and hence
was John's half-brother. He has not hitherto figured in this narra-
tive because he had the gifts, rare indeed among Henry's sons, of
prudence and of keeping out of trouble. He was unswerving in his
loyalty to John, who had employed him on a number of important
missions. King Richard had given him, in 1 1 98, the hand of Eia, the
daughter and heiress of William, the second Earl of Salisbury, who
had died in 1 196, and through her Longsword acquired the large
estates and title of Salisbury.
Earl William of Warenne was the son of Hamelin, a bastard son
of Geoffrey of Anjou. Hamelin and Henry II were half-brothers, and
thus William and John were cousins. William came into possession
of his father's estates in 1202. When John lost Normandy, William
relinquished his Norman holdings and remained faithful to John.
Earl William of Ferrars was a member of the old Norman nobil-
ity. His mother was a sister of William de Braose, and he had mar-
ried Agnes, a sister of Ranulf de Blundevill, Earl of Chester.
John had now made his peace with the Church, but he had no
assurance that his submission to the Pope would cause Philip to aban-
don his plans for invading England. John conceived a scheme for
placing himself under the direct protection of the Pope, an act that
would change the nature of Philip's intended invasion from a holy
war called by the Pope into an unlawful and sacrilegious attack on
the Pope's own domain.
On May 1 5, the Eve of the Ascension, at Dover, in die presence
194
of his barons and in the sight of a great crowd, John resigned his
crown into the hands of Pandulf, the Pope's representative, and per-
formed the act of feudal homage and allegiance, swearing: "I, John,
by the grace of God King of England and Lord of Ireland, will from
this time forth be faithful to God, to St. Peter, to the Church of
Rome, and to my liege lord Pope Innocent and his Catholic suc-
cessors/*
This act gave Innocent that suzerainty over England that William
the Conqueror had stoutly denied to Gregory VIL John confirmed
it by a charter declaring: "Not by force or from fear of the interdict,
but of our own free will and consent and by the general consent of our
barons, we assign and grant to God, to His holy Apostles Peter and
Paul, to the Holy Church of Rome, our mother, and to our lord
Pope Innocent and his Catholic successors the whole Kingdom of
England and the whole Kingdom of Ireland; and henceforth we re-
tain and hold those countries from him and the Church of Rome as
vicegerent. And we have made our homage and sworn allegiance to
our lord the Pope and his Catholic successors; and we bind our suc-
cessors and heirs in like manner to do homage and render allegiance/*
The charter was witnessed by the Archbishop of Dublin; John
Grey, Bishop of Norwich; Geoffrey FitzPeter, the Chief Justiciar;
the Earls of Salisbury, Pembroke, Warenne, Winchester, Arundel,
and Ferrars; Count Reginald of Boulogne; and William Bruyere,
Peter FitzHerbert, and Warin FitzGerald. As a token of his vassal-
age to the Supreme Pontiff, John bound himself and his successors to
pay a thousand marks yearly to the Pope.
This act was without precedent in English history. It had never
occurred to even the most pious and saintly of John's predecessors,
every one of whom, with the possible exception of William Rufus,
exceeded John in his love and reverence for the Church, to surrender
the kingdom to the Pope and to hold it of him as a feudal fief. It
Submission 195
was a brilliant stratagem, designed to free John from his present dan-
gers; it had little practical effect on the government of England, and
John's son later repudiated it.
The next day, the Feast of the Ascension, came and went, and
John was still safe and sound and still King of England. Taking the
hermit Peter at his word, therefore, John had him brought from Corfe
Castle, where he had been kept prisoner, to Wareham. There, to-
gether with his son, he was tied to a horse's tail, dragged through the
streets of the town, and hanged. Roger of Wendover remarks that
many people thought that Peter did not deserve to be punished so
cruelly, for John's resignation of his crown on Ascension Eve into the
hands of the Pope's representative was thought to lend some truth to
Peter's prophecy.
Pandulf returned to France on May 22, taking with him John's
charters of submission and of fealty and the sum of eight thousand
pounds, as a part of the restitution due to the exiled clerics. He
strongly advised the bishops, who were fully satisfied with the terms
of John's submission, to return to England and receive the rest of
the indemnity.
John also wrote to the Archbishop's brother:
THE KING, to his beloved Master Simon Langton: GREET*
INGS. Since we have accepted the terms of peace sent to us by the
Lord Pope, we have commanded our venerable father, the Lord
Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his fellow bishops to
come to England safely and without delay. And since we wish
henceforth to number you all among our friends, we command
you to come safely to England, and we counsel the aforesaid
Lord Archbishop and bishops to put aside all hesitation and hin*
drance and hasten to England. WITNESSED BY THE LORD PE*
TER OF WINCHESTER, at Wingham, on the z/th day of May.
196
There remained the more difficult task of dissuading Philip, the
erstwhile champion of Holy Church, who was smugly awaiting the
signal to snatch John's crown from his head as a glorious climax to a
lifetime of enmity. Pandulf advised him to call off his plans for in"
vading England, dismiss his troops and ships, and go home in peace.
Things were now in quite a different posture: England was, through
John's act of fealty, a papal fief. Instead of winning that remission of
his sins that the Pope had promised him as a reward for the congenial
task of deposing John, Philip would now be excommunicated if he
proceeded to any hostile act against John, the Pope's faithful vassal
and liege man, or against England, the Pope's fief, John could well
chuckle as he sat safe across the Channel and thought of his rival's
discomfiture.
Philip's rage knew no bounds. He declared that he had already
spent sixty thousand pounds on his preparations for the invasion,
which he had undertaken at the Pope's command, and that he was not
to be dissuaded from carrying through a project on which he had
spent so much time and money. Philip might even yet have gone
ahead and defied Pandulfs orders if trouble had not arisen with
Count Ferrand of Flanders.
Ferrand had for some time been secretly committed to John's
cause. He now tried to dissuade Philip from the invasion, telling him
that he had no claim whatever to the English crown, now that the
Pope's orders had been annulled, and that such a war would be an
unjust one. At last Ferrand flatly refused to help Philip. Philip de*
clared him his enemy, and Ferrand fled from the court. Philip
promptly invaded Flanders and ordered his fleet, which had assem-
bled at Boulogne, to the Swine, the port of the rich commercial town
of Damme.
Ferrand sent word of these new developments to John and begged
for help. John sent a fleet of five hundred ships, under the command
of his brother, William Longsword, with the Count of Holland and
Submission 197
leginald of Boulogne, and a force of seven hundred knights and
nany foot and horse soldiers. With a fair wind, on May 30 they soon
ighted the Swine, where they found the whole of Philip's fleet col'
ected. The English scouts learned that the ships were guarded only
>y a few sailors, for the soldiers that should have been on guard had
;one out to collect booty and were busy ravaging the rich Flemish
owns.
Salisbury immediately attacked the French fleet and met with lit*
le resistance. The English forces captured three hundred French
hips loaded with corn, wine, flour, meat, arms, and other stores and
ailed them off to England. Another hundred or more ships were
Irawn up on the shore, and these, after removing their stores, they
>urned. "One would have said die sea was on fire/' says the biogra'
)her of William Marshal. Some of the English disembarked and set
>ff in pursuit of the fleeing French, but when they met up with Phil"
p's main forces they were obliged to turn back to their ships.
This complete destruction of Philip's fleet forced him to abandon
he intention, if he still entertained it, of invading England, and he
urned his attention to Flanders, where he was faced by the armies of
i powerful coalition headed by the Emperor Otto.
When John learned of Philip's reverses, he was filled with joy at
his practical assurance that no amount of treachery or trickery could
low bring Philip to England, and he dismissed the great army at
Barham Down.
Whilst Philip was thus beset in the north by the coalition of his
enemies that John had long been fostering, John saw his best oppor*
unity to regain his lands on the Continent. He accordingly assent
Died an army at Portsmouth to invade the western coast of France,
Mit when his barons learned what his purpose was they refused to
follow him. Roger of Wendover says that they refused on the grounds
that John was still excommunicated. This may have been their pre*
Vint it ItWIv tViat tViPir real reusnn was that tKev did nnt rntv
198
sider themselves bound, by the laws of military tenure, to serve over-
seas. It is quite likely, too, that they remembered John's failure to
make the least exertion to save his continental territories whilst he
still had possession of them and that they refused to help him regain
that which he had refused to exert himself to save.
In any event, John seems to have accepted their excuse that he
was still excommunicated, for he took immediate steps to alter that
situation. He sent warrants, signed by twenty-four of his earls and
barons, to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the exiled bishops, who
were still in France, urging them to lay aside all fears, return to Eng-
land, and receive thek rights and the indemnities he had promised
them.
He had already revoked the sentence of outlawry that he had laid
on the clergy in the first heat of his anger:
BE IT KNOWN that we have publicly revoked and do now revoke
the sentence commonly called outlawry that we caused to be laid
on ecclesiastical persons, and we declare by this our letter patent
that the affairs of ecclesiastical persons do not concern us and
henceforth we will not pronounce that sentence against ecclesi-
astical persons. MYSELF AS WITNESS, at Battle, on the i3th day
of June, in the 1 5th year of our reign.
He also recalled Robert Fitz Walter and Eustace de Vesci and re-
stored all thek lands to them.
On the advice of Pandulf, the clergy accepted John's invitation
and landed at Dover on July 16, 1213. The King was at Winches-
ter, and there the bishops met him on July zo. When he learned of
thek approach, he went out to meet them, fell prostrate at thek feet,
and with tears begged them to have pity on him and on England.
Stephen Langton, seeing thus for the first time his King, raised him
from the ground and led him to the door of Winchester Cathedral.
-12 14] Submission 199
There the clergy chanted the 50 th Psalm, "Miserere met, Dens, se*
cundum magnam misericordiam tuam" and "in the presence of all
the nobles, who wept with joy," says Roger of Wendover, "they ah-
solved him according to the custom of the Church/* John then re-
newed his coronation oath, swearing that he would "love Holy
Church and her ordained members and would to the utmost of his
power defend and uphold them against all their enemies; and that he
would renew all the good laws of his ancestors, especially those of
King Edward, and destroy bad laws, judge his subjects according to
the just decrees of his court, and restore his rights to each man/*
The King also swore again to make restitution for all the property
he had confiscated in connection with the interdict and set the follow*
ing Easter as the day by which all restitution would be made. If he
failed to make restitution by that time, he agreed that the sentence of
excommunication might be renewed against him. The King then re-
newed his oath of fealty and allegiance to the Holy See.
Stephen Langton took John by the hand and led him into the
Cathedral, where the Archbishop celebrated Mass in the presence of
the King and his barons. Afterwards there was a great feast, at which
the Archbishop, die bishops, and the barons all sat at the same table
with the King, amid general rejoicing.
John issued a summons on the following day, July zi, for a coun-
cil to meet at St. Albans on August 4. This was to be more than the
customary Great Council, for in addition to those who were ordi-
narily summoned John ordered the sheriffs to send four faithful men
and the bailiff from each township, for the purpose of finding out
how much damage had been done by the confiscation, what the losses
had been, how much was due as compensation, and to whom it
should be paid. As an earnest of his reconciliation with Stephen Lang-
ton, he ordered the two justiciars to consult with the Archbishop in
their governing of the kingdom during his intended absence.
John was eager to start on his projected expedition to Poitou. He
ZOO [l2I2-
gave charge of the kingdom to Geoffrey FitzPeter, his Chief Justiciar,
and Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, who, with John Grey,
Bishop of Norwich, alone of the bishops had remained faithful to
him during his long struggle with the Pope. He returned to Ports-
mouth, freed from the excommunication that his barons had advanced
as a pretext for not following him to Poitou, and found that in the
interval they had hit upon a fresh excuse. This time a great number
of knights came to him and complained that their long stay under
arms had exhausted all their money. Unless he paid them from his
treasury, they refused again to follow him. John was enraged at this
effort to extort payment for the service that he insisted was due him
under the terms of feudal tenure, and he refused to pay them. The
King embarked with his attendants and set sail, in an effort to shame
his barons into following him, but they went home. John landed at
Guernsey and then returned, burning with rage and intent upon pun*
ishing his disobedient barons.
In the meantime the two justiciars met the Council at St. Albans.
In the presence of Archbishop Langton, the King's reconciliation
with the Church was announced. The Chief Justiciar, acting for the
King, ordered that the laws of Henry I should be kept by all and
that all unjust laws should be abolished. Sheriffs, foresters, and other
agents of the King were ordered to stop extorting money, inflicting
injuries, and levying illegal taxes, as had been their practice. This
council, which Bishop Stubbs calls "the first representative assembly
on record/* was of great importance, not only because it included for
the first time the representatives of each township, but also because it
was there that "the laws of King Henry 3 * were first mentioned as the
ideal to which men wanted to return. In view of Stephen Langton's
actions at the next meeting of the Council, it is likely that he, rather
than Geoffrey FitzPeter, was the one who conceived the idea of us*
ing the charter that Henry I had issued at his crowning in 1 100 as
Submission zoi
the standard of good government. It is hardly probable that many
people at the Council had any idea of what the laws of King Henry
were, but the phrase would summon up pictures of the good old days
when barons had their rights.
John meanwhile had collected an army and started out to punish
his barons. Stephen Langton came to him at Northampton and
warned him that such an arbitrary act as the punishment of the bar-
ons without due process of law would violate the oath he had taken
on the occasion of his absolution "to judge his subjects according to
the just decrees of his courts/* John angrily replied that the Arch-
bishop had no business to meddle in lay affairs and that he, the King,
would not cease to exercise his authority on the Archbishop's ac-
count.
In a rage, John set out for Nottingham on the next day. Stephen
followed him and boldly declared that if die King persisted, he would
excommunicate every member of his army. The Archbishop held
firm till he induced John to abandon his design and to name a day
when his barons might be tried in court in a lawful way.
The next meeting of the Council was held at St. Paul's in London
on August 25, i zi 3. Stephen Langton opened the proceedings with
a sermon on the text, "My heart hath trusted in God, and I am
helped; therefore my flesh hath rejoiced/* When the Archbishop an"
nounced his text, someone in the assembly cried out: "You lie; your
heart never trusted in God, and your flesh never rejoiced/* The
crowd beat the man till he was rescued by the officers of the peace,
whereupon Stephen continued his sermon.
During the Council, Cardinal Langton called some of the barons
aside and asked them: "Did you hear how, when I absolved the
King at Winchester, I made him swear that he would do away with
unjust laws and renew good laws, such as those of King Edward, and
cause them to be observed by everyone in the kingdom? A charter
2O2
of the first Henry, King of England, has just now been found, by
which you may, if you like, recall your long-lost rights and your for-
mer condition/*
This would indicate that the Cardinal had not wasted his time
whilst he was cooling his heels in France; he seems to have landed in
England with a Well-defined plan for curbing John's absolute power.
The Archbishop then caused the charter to be read aloud to the
assembly. The charter that Henry I issued on the day of his crown-
ing, August 5, 1 1 oo, was an attempt to secure the loyalty of all
classes and particularly that of the barons, and a pledge to do away
with the abuses and evil practices introduced by William Rufus.
Since it served to some extent as a model for the Great Charter, it
may be interesting to note some of its provisions.
Henry, after declaring that he had been crowned by the common
consent of the barons, announced that the Church was free and prom-
ised not to sell it, farm it out, or take anything from its domains whilst
any see or abbey was vacant. Next he promised to do away with all
evil practices, which he proceeded to mention in part. He promised
not to force the heir of any tenant-in-chief to redeem his inheritance
by what amounted to an act of purchase, but to collect from him only
the just and lawful relief, and he ordered that his tenants should do
the same with their vassals. He promised not to take any property
from a subject in return for the royal permission for the marriage of
his daughter or sister; not to retain any of her property when he gave
an heiress in marriage in exercise of the right of wardship; to allow
widows their dowry as a marriage portion and not to give them in
marriage again without their consent, and to appoint the widow or
some other near relation as a guardian of die children's land, rather
than to entrust it to some favorite for his enrichment, as Rufus had
done. Again Henry enjoined that his barons should act in the same
way towards their tenants.
Henry ratified the wills of his subjects and provided that if a man
1214] Submission 2,03
died intestate his wife, children, or parents should distribute his
money for the good of his soul, as seemed best to them; Rufus would
probably have confiscated it. The King promised not to exact execs-
sive bail in case of forfeiture and to punish offenders not arbitrarily
but according to their offences. Lastly, he promised that all knights
who held their land by military tenure should be exempt from all
amercements and contributions, so that they might provide them"
selves with horses and arms and thus be fit and ready for the King's
service and for the defense of the country.
The enthusiasm with which the barons heard these provisions is
an indication of the extent to which John had acted contrary to them.
In the presence of the Archbishop they swore that when the oppor-
tunity arose they would stand up for their rights and, if necessary, die
for them, and Cardinal Langton promised them his assistance.
John of course soon learned that the Archbishop and the barons
were plotting against him, and Matthew Paris states that the King
sent messengers to Innocent with a large sum of money and the prom-
ise of more, to urge the Pope to curb the Archbishop and excom-
municate the barons.
The Papal Legate, Cardinal Nicholas, Bishop of Tusculum, ar-
rived in England at Michaelmas. Innocent had given him the mission
of settling the disagreement between the King and the bishops over
the amounts of the compensation the King was to give diem. Al-
though England was still under tbe interdict, the people, dressed in
their holiday clothes, received the Legate everywhere with music and
processions, imagining in their simplicity that he would immediately
erase their shame by lifting the interdict. As soon as Cardinal Nicho-
las reached Westminster he degraded the Abbot, who was accused
by his monks of incontinency and of wasting the Abbey's funds.
The citizens of Oxford, who had been under a special interdict
for the hanging of the three clerks in 1 209, came to the Cardinal and
begged for absolution. Among other things, the Legate enjoined on
204 /I2I2-
them as penance to go barefoot and clad only in their drawers, carry"
ing scourges and chanting the Miserere, to each of the churches in
Oxford, at the rate of one church each day, and to receive absolution
from the priests of each parish.
John gave permission, during this summer, to some monks in
Oxfordshire to try out a novel idea they had conceived, and the
clerk who wrote the letter seems to have had some difficulty in phras-
ing it:
THE KING, to the Sheriff of Oxford, ETC. Be it known to you
that for the love of Qod we have granted the Abbot and canons
of Osney permission to have made a leaden canal under the
ground, whose round concavity will have cross-wise four thumbs-
breadth within the circumferences, so that they may have a flow
of water from the Thames to the offices of their Abbey, wherever
it may most conveniently be made, and we grant that they may
have the flow of this water by means of that canal forever.
Geoffrey FitzPeter, the Chief Justiciar, died on October 2, 1213.
Matthew Paris says of him: "He was a most firm pillar of the king"
dom, a noble'minded man, learned in the law, expert in the treasury,
revenues, and all good offices, and related by blood or marriage to
all the magnates of England, for which reason the King feared him
above all other mortals without any liking for him, for he held the
reins of the government. At his death England was like a ship at sea
without a pilot/'
When John was told of the Justiciar's death, he laughed heartily
and said: "When he arrives in hell, let him greet Hubert Walter,
whom he will no doubt find there. Now, by God's feet, I am for the
first time King and Lord of England! 3 '
As Geoffrey's successor in die office of Chief Justiciar John ap*
pointed the faithful Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester. This
-i 2 r^J Submission
did not sit well with the barons, for they were jealous of Peter, a na*
tive of Poitou, as a foreigner, and they resented the energy with
which he set about collecting men, money, and supplies for John's
expedition to France.
A meeting of the Council was held at St. Paul's in London at the
beginning of October, in the presence of the King and the Papal
Legate, for the purpose of fixing the compensation due to the clergy.
The discussion continued for three days. John offered to pay a hun*
dred thousand marks immediately and to give his oath and pledge
that if the Legate and the bishops found that the damage inflicted was
in excess of that sum he would make full restitution before the follow
ing Easter. The Legate considered this a fair offer and advised the
bishops to accept it. They, on the other hand, wanted to make an ex*
act investigation of the property confiscated and the damage done,
consider these findings at a council, and then arrive at the sum due
them. The Legate Nicholas was indignant that the bishops would not
accept the King's offer at once, and they in turn accused him of favor"
ing John unduly. The King, however, was quite willing to delay the
payment as long as the bishops liked and did not press them to accept
his offer.
At the conclusion of the Council, before the high altar and in the
presence of the clergy and the people, John renewed his allegiance to
the Pope. He resigned his crown and his kingdom into the hands of
the Papal Legate and received them back from him as a papal fief.
He gave Nicholas a copy of the charter of submission that he had
given Pandulf in the preceding May at Dover, stamped with golden
seals, for the use of the Pope.
The Council assembled again at Reading a month later, but die
King did not make his appearance. On the third day they met again
at Wallingford, and there John repeated his offer of restitution. The
clergy, however, were much exercised over the problem of how to
calculate the value of the castles and houses that had been demolished
20 6
and of the orchards and woods that had been cut down. At that time,
if the King suspected anyone of disloyal tendencies, his first act had
been to order the man's castle demolished so that he could not use it as
a stronghold and a base for rebellion. John probably began his oper*
ations against the bishops when the interdict was pronounced by de-
molishing such castles as were under their control. England was in a
fever of building at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Exten-
sive work was being done on most of the cathedrals, churches were
building all over the land, and, as a result of the long period of peace,
general prosperity, and settled conditions in the country, private
dwellings in great number were being erected. All this building ere*-
ated a demand for timber, and it is likely that John had turned some
of the confiscated estates to further profit by felling the trees on them.
At last the King and the bishops agreed to the appointment of four
barons as arbitrators, to whose decisions they promised to agree.
The Council met again at Reading at the beginning &f December,
and at this meeting each one, layman as well as cleric, who was con-
cerned in the matter of the interdict produced a list of his confiscated
property and of the amount of money he had lost. The sum was stag-
gering, and the Legate sided with the King in declaring that it was
beyond all reason and far beyond his ability to pay. The claimants re-
mained obstinate, and John postponed making restitution till a com-
promise could be reached. The arbitration of the four barons appar-
ently was not resorted to. In the case of Stephen Langton and the
bishops who had fled to France, John made a further payment of fif-
teen thousand marks, to be divided among them.
Matthew Paris tells that at this time John began to entertain evil
thoughts about the resurrection of the dead, by which the chronicler
probably means that John spoke and acted as though he did not be-
lieve in a life beyond the grave. In this connection he tells of a }est
the King made, when a fat stag was killed in the hunt and was being
-i 214] Submission 207
skinned in his presence. "See how fat this animal has grown/' ob-
served the King, "and yet he has never heard a Mass!**
Innocent III, on November 1,1213, wrote to his Legate, order-
ing him "to cause suitable persons, according to your own judgment,
to be ordained to the bishoprics and abbacies in England now vacant,
either by appointment or by canonical election, who shall be remark-
able not only for their manner of life but also for their learning, and
at the same time faithful to the King and of use to the kingdom and
also helpful in giving assistance and advice, the King's consent being
previously obtained/*
When Cardinal Nicholas received this letter, he consulted with
John and set about filling the vacancies with men whom the King
suggested. Innocent had apparently forgotten all about the prized
right of free election by the canonical chapters. John had a free hand
to appoint bishops and abbots, in many cases without even the for-
mality of an election by chapter or monks in his presence, and he
used the opportunity to reward the clerics who had been faithful to
him during the interdict.
The Legate's appointments aroused many complaints and pro-
tests from those who thought that they had a right to participate in
the elections or that their claims to various vacancies were being
overlooked. Stephen Langton, who would never have been Arch-
bishop but for the active intervention of the Pope, was the loudest in
his protests against the appointment of bishops in the Southern Prov-
ince by the Papal Legate under the authority of the Pope's com-
mand. Some clerics appealed to the Pope over his Legate's head, and
these men Nicholas suspended and sent to die Roman Curia. The
Legate was so destitute of humanity, Roger of Wendover records,
that he refused to allow these malcontents one penny from the reve-
nues of the appointments they were protesting to pay their expenses
to Rome to appeal against his actions. Nicholas furthermore be-
2o8 [1212-
stowed vacant benefices and parish churches without consulting the
patrons of these livings.
John kept the Christmas of 1213 at Windsor and distributed fes-
tive cloaks to a number of his barons.
Stephen Langton held a council of his clergy at Dunstable in Jan-
uary 1214, to discuss the affairs of the Church in England. The
clergy were united in their indignation against the Papal Legate, who
was filling vacancies in the Church with the King's nominees, so
that it appeared to them that Nicholas was more concerned with
pleasing the King than with promoting the welfare of the Church.
After a lengthy discussion, the Archbishop sent messengers to the
Legate, who was then at Burton-on-Trent, to inform him that the
Archbishop had appealed to Rome and to forbid him to make any
further appointments to vacancies till the appeal should have been
heard. At the same time Stephen asserted that he alone had the right
to appoint priests to the vacant churches in his diocese.
Cardinal Nicholas paid no attention to this message and continued
to fill vacancies with men pleasing to John. He conferred with the
King about the Archbishop's appeal to Rome, and with John's con-
sent he sent Pandulf to the papal court with the mission of denying
the Archbishop's accusations and overriding his appeal. When Pan-
dulf had audience with the Pope, he vilified the character of Stephen
Langton and greatly praised the King. John, he declared, was the
most humble and moderate king he had ever seen. Innocent had
great confidence in Pandulf, and he accepted the sub-deacon's esti-
mate of John's character.
Pandulf was vigorously opposed by Master Simon Langton, the
Primate's younger brother, who argued strongly for the Archbishop's
side of the case. Pandulf had brought with him the charter of submis-
sion and fealty to the Holy See, sealed with gold, which John had
given the Legate in the preceding September, and this may have in-
fluenced Innocent in the King's favor. Pandulf declared that the
Submission 209
Archbishop and the other clergy were showing themselves too grasp-
Ing and covetous in the matter of the restitution that was due them,
hat they were oppressing the King and treating him unjustly, and
hat they were attempting to claim rights and authority that did not
belong to them. The sub-deacon's advocacy of the case prevailed,
and Innocent declined to admonish his Legate or to restrict his pow-
ers, as Stephen Langton had requested.
John began to fear that the controversy over the amount of the
restitution would go on indefinitely. The haggling and the delay were
not of themselves unpleasing to him, but as long as they continued
England remained under the interdict. John was preparing for an-
other expedition against Philip, and he did not want to afford his bar-
ons the excuse of refusing to accompany him because of the interdict.
He therefore sent two knights, Thomas and Adam Hardington, the
former of whom had been one of his ambassadors to the Sultan of
Morocco, and a clerk, to Rome, to join Bishop John Grey, who had
gone there in the previous October to be absolved by the Pope from
the excommunication that had been laid on him by name as one of
the King's evil counsellors during the interdict. John instructed these
four to lay his case before the Pope and to appeal to him to set the
terms for die restitution, so that the interdict might be lifted.
The great system of alliances that John, at the expense of untold
treasure, had been building up against Philip was now at the height
of its power. The coalition was headed by the Emperor Otto and in-
cluded the Counts of Holland, Boulogne, and Flanders, who had
all sworn allegiance to John, and die Dukes of Lorraine and of
Brabant. A strong English contingent, headed by William Long-
sword, joined the other forces, and throughout 1213 they harassed
Philip's army, ravaged Flanders, and fought a series of inconclusive
engagements with the French.
John and his allies felt that the time had now come for a concerted
effort against Philip. The strategy agreed upon was a simultaneous
210
attack on France through Flanders and the northeast by the allies
and on the south through Poitou by John.
In pursuance of this design, John, with a large army, embarked at
Portsmouth on Candlemas Day, 1214. Before he left England he
placed the country "in the custody and protection of God and the
Holy Roman Church and the Lord Pope and the Lord Nicholas,
Bishop of Tusculum and Legate of the Holy See/ 3 and he appointed
as "our Justiciar of England the venerable father, our Lord Peter,
Bishop of Winchester, for as long as pleases us, to have custody in
our place of our land of England and the peace of our realm/*
He also ordered Thomas Sanford to "deliver to our beloved and
faithful servants, Peter de Maulay and Reginald de Pontibus, 40,"
ooo marks, fifteen golden cups, one silver cup, one golden saltcellar,
one golden crown, and one casket with gold and one red casket with
jewels/'
John landed at La Rochelle on February 15. Many of the Poite-
vin nobles came to swear fealty to him and to join his forces. He cap'
tured a number of castles belonging to the disaffected nobles and
tightened his hold on Aquitaine. Before he could proceed to any ef'
fective operations against Philip, however, he had to subdue the re'
bellious members of the Lusignan family, who had been his bitter
enemies ever since he took Isabella away from Hugh. Hugh was
now Hugh IX, Count of La Marche, and the three brothers, Hugh,
Count Ralph of Eu, and Geoffrey of Lusignan, were the strongest
nobles in Poitou and the leaders of the opposition to John.
In a letter sent back to England, John described the steps in his
victory over the three brothers. On May 1 6, the Friday before Whit-
sunday, he marched to Miervant, a castle belonging to Geoffrey, and
began the assault early the next morning, "although many people
would not believe that it could be taken by assault/* as John com"
placently reported. At one o'clock the garrison surrendered. On
-1214] Submission 21 1
Whitsunday John laid siege to Novent, in which were Geoffrey and
his two sons. After three days, when the walls were almost breached
by the stone'throwers, Hugh of La Marche came and, realizing the
hopelessness of his brother's situation, persuaded him to surrender
and throw himself on John's mercy.
At Parthenai, on May 25, the three brothers did homage and
swore fealty to John, and the King promised his legitimate daughter
Joan to Hugh's son, also named Hugh. (This marriage did not take
place. In the end, after John's death, it was his widow, Queen Isa-
bella, who married the young Hugh, the son of the man to whom
she was betrothed when she married John.) The letter reporting all
this was written at Parthenai, and John closed optimistically: "Now,
by the grace of God, an opportunity is afforded us of attacking our
mortal enemy, the King of France, beyond Poitou,"
John made good progress at first. He captured Nantes, where he
took prisoner Robert, the son of the Count of Dreux, and then, on
June 19, he laid seige to the castle of La Roche-au-Moine, which
commanded the road between Nantes and Angers. He evidently in-
tended to settle down for a protracted stay, as the following letter in-
dicates:
THE KING, to his beloved and faithful subjects, the Abbot of
Beaulieu, Brother Alan Martell, and Master Arnulf : GREET-
INGS. We send to you our beloved and faithful Reginald de
Pontibus the elder and command you to believe and to do what-
ever he tells you about bringing the Lady Queen to us and about
bringing to us as much of our treasure as we told you, and our
horses and Richard our son and Joan otcr daughter, together with
Andrew and Elias de Beauchamp. And in testimony of this, ETC*
MYSELF AS WITNESS, at La Roche-au-Moine, on die igth day
of June, in the 1 6th year of our reign.
212 /"I2I2-
Philip sent his son Louis to the relief of the besieged castle, and
when John learned that the French army was approaching he sent
spies to find out its strength. They returned and told him that his
forces were much larger than the French and urged him to go forth
and meet the enemy in battle, for they were certain that he would
win the victory. The King ordered his army to prepare for battle, but
the Poitevin nobles, of whose treachery he had had ample proof
in the past, refused to fight. This desertion forced him to retreat
to the south on July 2. Louis was now approaching from Chinon.
When he heard that John had lifted the siege of La Roche^u-
Moine he thought that the English were advancing to attack him.
Knowing that John's forces were superior to his, Louis turned back
to Chinon.
John's ambassadors at Rome, in the meantime, had prevailed on
Innocent to put an end to the haggling over the restitution, settle the
terms, and order the interdict to be lifted. The Pope directed that
John pay the Archbishop and the Bishops of London and Ely the
sum of forty thousand marks, less what he had already given in the
two previous payments before the exiled clergy returned and at
the council at Reading. The remainder of the restitution, the sum of
which had not yet been fixed, was to be paid at the rate of twelve
thousand marks a year in two equal payments on All Saints' Day and
on Ascension Day. Innocent then ordered his Legate, Cardinal Nich-
olas, to lift the interdict as soon as the first payment had been made
and security given for the remainder.
When this letter reached Nicholas, John was still abroad, but be*
fore he left the country he had given the Legate and William Marshal
full authority to act in this matter. They called a council at St. Paul's
of all the persons who claimed to have been injured financially be-
cause of the King's actions when the interdict was imposed, and the
Legate explained the provisions of the restitution directed by the
Pope. Accounts were rendered of the amounts already paid, and
Submission 2 i 3
the remainder was put under the suretyship of Bishops Peter des
Roches and John Grey.
With the matter thus settled, on June 29, 12 14 the Legate, at St.
Paul's, amid the chanting of the *fe Deum and the ringing of the
bells, lifted the interdict, which had lain on England for six years,
three months, and six days.
As soon as the fact became generally known that the King had un*
dertaken to make restitution for the properties he had confiscated be"
cause of the interdict, the Legate was besieged by a vast throng of
"abbots, priors, Templars, Hospitallers, abbesses, nuns, clerks, and
laymen/* all clamoring for a share. They claimed that although they
had not been driven out of England, they had nevertheless been so
persecuted for the Faith by the King and his agents that they had
been stripped of everything and knew not where to turn. Nicholas
told them that he had no authority to go beyond the provisions of
the Pope's letters and advised them to lay their complaints before the
Pope and ask for justice from him. When they heard this advice,
the whole throng went sadly home.
Whilst John was forced, by the refusal of the Poitevin nobles to
fight against the French, to retreat to La Rochelle and remain inactive
there, his allies to the north proceeded to put their part of the plan
into effect. Philip had headed for Lille when the allies overtook him
at Bouvines, a village between Tournai and Lille. He had halted
there for the night, on Saturday, July 26, It was a hot July, and
Philip made his camp on the banks of the River Marcq so that die
men and their horses might refresh themselves.
The allied commanders held a conference on the following morn*
ing and discussed die advisability of attacking Philip. As it was Sun-*
day, Reginald of Boulogne said that it would be wrong to fight on
that day and thus profane the Sabbath with slaughter and bloodshed.
The Emperor Otto agreed and said that he had never won a victory
on a Sunday. Hugh of Boves, however, called Reginald a traitor to
ZI4
John, from whom he had received much land and money, and de*
clared that if the battle were postponed it would be a great loss for
King John. He quoted the proverb: "Delay is dangerous when
things are ready/* and so taunted the others with cowardice that they
agreed to fight at once.
The allied forces were divided into the usual three armies of medi'
aeval warfare. The first, on the right, was commanded by Ferrand
of Flanders, Reginald of Boulogne, and William Longsword; the
center by William of Holland and Hugh of Boves, and the third, the
left, by the Emperor Otto. Philip in the meantime had had the bridge
across the Marcq destroyed so that his army, fighting with the river
at its back, could not retreat. This was to be no ordinary engagement,
with the main emphasis on capturing prisoners of high rank to be
held for ransom and on the plundering of the countryside, but a fight
to the finish.
It is impossible to form any idea of the number of men involved.
Estimates vary widely, depending upon the nationality of the one
doing the estimating. Some French writers place the allied troops at
80,000 and the French at 25,000. On the other hand, the English
all say that they were greatly outnumbered, some by as much as four
to one.
The right wing charged first, with such fury that they broke
through the French ranks and forced their way to Philip. Reginald of
Boulogne unhorsed the French king, forced him to the ground, and
raised his sword to kill him. One of Philip's bodyguard, Pierre Tris-
tan, threw himself upon his King and received the blow intended for
Philip. This gave the French an opportunity to drive Reginald off
and assist the King to remount. The right wing of the allies, after their
first charge had failed to rout the French, were forced to fall back.
They found themselves hemmed in between the French in front and
their own center army to the rear of them.
In the confusion, Reginald encountered Hugh of Boves. "Here is
Submission 21$
the battle you advised us to fight," he said, "and which I thought we
should not. Now you are going to flee, seized with panic like all the
rest; but I am going to fight, and I shall be either captured or killed/'
The three leaders of the first army, Ferrand, Reginald, and Wil'
liam Longsword, were captured. The French episcopate made a
good showing in this battle. King Richard's old enemy, the stout--
hearted Bishop of Beauvais, went into the conflict armed only with
a club. With it he succeeded in beating William Longsword from
his horse and thus captured him. The Bishop^elect of Senlis cap"
tured Reginald of Boulogne.
The second army, led by William of Holland and Hugh of Boves,
retreated before the French, and the whole brunt of the French attack
then fell upon the forces commanded by Otto. He fought with such
lion^like courage that he had three horses killed under him. Neither
side could prevail; the scorching July afternoon was drawing to a
close, and both armies were utterly exhausted. Otto was allowed to
retreat unconquered, and he and his followers fled to Valenciennes
and thence to Cologne. Of all the vast forces of the coalition, only
seven hundred Brabantines remained on the field, and they refused
either to flee or to surrender. Philip had them all massacred.
Philip made a glorious triumphal procession to Paris, with Per-
rand, Reginald, and William Longsword in his train. The students
of the University of Peris led the celebrations. "Indefatigably, for
seven successive nights/* says William the Breton, "they did not stop
feasting, leaping and dancing, and singing/*
John entered into negotiations to effect the release of his brother
and his allies, but Philip attempted to drive a hard bargain and to im*
pose a difficult choice on John, as the following letter shows:
To THE venerable fathers in Christ the Lord Nicholas, by the
grace of God Bishop of Tusculum and Legate of the Apostolic
See; the Lord Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of
2l6
All England, and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church; the
Lord Peter, Bishop of Winchester and Justiciar of England; the
other Bishops of England, and his earls and barons: JOHN, by
the same grace King of England, ETC.
Our beloved brother William,. Earl of Salisbury, kept in
chains by the King of France, has let us know that he will be en*
tirely released from prison and set free, if we will allow Robert,
the son of Robert, Count of Dreux, whom we hold captive, to
go free in exchange for him. And since this same Robert is related
to the aforesaid King of France, we by no means would or will
set him free without your advice, especially since we have been
given to understand that if this same Robert is set free from his
chains and returns to his country, the Count of Boulogne will
be put to death and the Count of Flanders will never come out
of prison, which would by no means be to our convenience or
honor. We command you therefore faithfully to give us counsel
in these matters. Be it known to you that it has been proposed to
us to release the aforesaid Earl of Salisbury and Robert of Dreux,
under hostages, for a suitable period, within which they will re*
turn to the prisons where they formerly were, but we will do
nothing concerning their final liberation until we have had your
advice thereupon, which you will be pleased speedily to signify
to us by your letters patent, by the bearer of this present, our son
Oliver. MYSELF AS WITNESS, at St. Maixent, on the 6th day
of September.
In the end, William Longsword was exchanged for Robert of
Dreux. The Counts of Boulogne and Flanders, however, Philip re-
garded as rebellious vassals and traitors, and he kept them in prison.
Reginald died, chained to a huge log, after thirteen years of close
imprisonment, and Ferrand was released after thirteen years.
When the news of this crushing defeat was brought to John, he
-12 14] Submission 217
knew that the labor of years and the expenditure of a vast treasure
had come to nothing. He had spent forty thousand marks that he had
taken from the Cistercians during the interdict and untold sums be-
sides in arming and paying the members of the coalition. Philip's
victory was so complete that John could hope to salvage nothing from
the defeat of his allies; there was nothing left on which to rebuild his
hope of overcoming Philip. Otto struggled on from his last strong"
hold in northeastern Germany against his rival Frederick, but it was
a losing fight from the beginning. Nevertheless Otto kept up the
contest, futile though it was, till his death of an overdose of medicine
on May 19, 1218.
John contrasted the strength of his position when he was last in
Poitou with the defeat that he had now met, and he exclaimed:
"Since I became reconciled to God and submitted myself and my
kingdom to the Church, nothing has gone well with me, and every
thing unlucky has happened to me/*
After Philip had celebrated his triumph> he turned to the south to
meet John. In spite of his victory over John's allies, Philip made no
attempt to repeat that success in Poitou. His most important task was
to consolidate his gains in the north, and the conquest of Aquitaine,
whether John were there or not, would be an extremely difficult mat-
ter. The two kings accordingly, on September 14, 1214, agreed on
a truce to last till the Easter of 1220, with each side retaining what
it had at the time of the treaty.
Walter Grey, the nephew of John Grey, Bishop of Norwich, had
been the King's Chancellor since 1205. He was elected Bishop of
Worcester to succeed Mauger, who had died in 1212, and was con-
secrated at Canterbury on October 5, 1214.
His uncle, John's intimate friend, had meanwhile been chosen
Bishop of Durham, albeit unwillingly, by the minster-men of Dur-
ham in obedience to a letter from the Pope brought to them by the
Legate. Durham was a much richer and more influential see than was
21 8 [l2I2-
Norwich, which John Grey had held since 1200. After they had
made the election as the Pope had ordered, the minster-men appealed
to Innocent in favor of their own candidate, Richard Poore, Dean of
Salisbury. Innocent decided in favor of his own nominee, as might
have been expected, but he consoled Richard by having him elected
Bishop of Chichester, which see had been vacant since the death of
Simon FitzRobert in 1207. Richard was accordingly consecrated
by Stephen Langton at the same time that he conferred the episco*
pate on Walter Grey.
John Grey, however, did not live to become Bishop of Durham.
He was in Poitou during the summer of 1214 and died near Poitiers
on October 18. Although he was called one of the King's evil coun*
sellers, he seems to have had an unexceptionable character and to
have been of blameless private life.
Oft CHAPTER. XI]
"THE FIELD CALLED
RUNNYMEDE
1214-1215
"
_ OHN returned to England on October 15, 1214 and set
P about collecting the scutage that had been levied by his Justi'
ciar, Peter des Roches, in the previous May, in an effort to
raise money for his hard-pressed master. The scutage had been levied
only on those tenantS'in'chief who had not accompanied the King to
Poitou, but many of them, and particularly those living north of the
Humber, refused to pay it. The Exchequer succeeded in collecting
only about a quarter of the amount due.
When he pressed for payment, John met with stiff resistance. The
barons based their refusal to pay on the assertion that they were not
bound to military service in a foreign war and hence were not liable
to scutage in place of that service. Deeper than that, however, lay
their objection to the regularity with which John had levied scutages
as a means of financing his administration and his subsidies to his al-
lies on the Continent as well as his military expeditions. Funda*
220
mentally, the barons were trying, by attempting to force him to re*
spect and confirm their ancient rights and privileges, to keep and
extend the benefits they derived from the feudal system of military
tenure whilst at the same time evading the responsibilities that it en-
tailed.
None of John's barons was the absolute owner of his lands and
estates; he was a tenant only. The tenure of the land had been be-
stowed on him or his ancestors by the king, and most of the lay barons
held land by knight-service; that is, in return for the use of the estate
they were bound to serve in person and to furnish the king with a
specified number of knights in time of war. This obligation to mili-
tary service was in addition to the regular feudal dues and aids that
accompanied other forms of tenure as well,
The barons* claim that they were not bound to serve in a foreign
war rested on no sound precedent, and John could assert in rebuttal
that both his father and his brother had exacted knight-service in wars
outside England. If John were right, he would have been justified in
demanding, not a scutage from those barons who had refused to fol-
low him to Poitou, but the forfeiture of their estates. The tenants by
knight-service did not have the privilege of deciding whether they
would serve the king in war by personal attendance or whether they
would pay scutage in commutation of that service; that was a matter
for the king to decide. By refusing to serve in time of war they had
violated the feudal contract by which they held their lands, and hence
tjiey were liable to forfeit those lands to the Crown.
From John's point of view, then, he was being moderate in his
demands when he attempted to collect scutage from those tenants
who had refused to accompany him to Poitou, even though that
scutage was at the rate of three marks on each knight's fee instead of
the customary two marks. The refusal of those barons to render mili-
tary service and to pay scutage seemed to him an obvious attempt to
strike at his royal authority, to undermine the whole involved struc-
-i 2 1 57 "The Field Called Runnymede" 221
ture of land tenure, and to betray on the part of those barons a desire
to assert that they were the absolute lords of their estates and not
tenants only*
The nobles, on the other hand, had many individual causes for
complaint in John's abuses of his rights of wardship, of reliefs, of
primer seisins, and the like. The complicated scheme of rights, dues,
and customs had never been exactly defined and set down in writing;
the only standard was the traditional one of what was just or custom-
ary. If John demanded, for example, a crushing relief before he
would give an heir seisin of his estates, there was little that the heir,
individually, could do about it. Since these acts of injustice were in*
dividual acts, coming at different times and aSecting victims in differ-*
ent parts of the country, there was never any one occasion when all
who felt themselves injured could unite to demand justice or to de-
fend their rights.
The imposition of the scutage of 1214, however, did present such
an occasion. If John had returned victorious to England, it is not
likely that any effective protest would have been made against the
scutage or against anything else within reason that he might choose
to do. As it was, he came back utterly defeated, with the mighty coa-
lition in Flanders broken up and its leaders defeated or in prison* He
was no longer the most powerful ruler in Europe; now he was a van-
quished king with no allies to strengthen him and with his treasure
squandered on a dream of conquest that came to nothing.
The disaffected barons met at Bury St. Edmunds, the site of the
greatest abbey in England, at the tomb of the martyred King, a shrine
that equaled in riches, importance, and popularity that of St. Thomas
at Canterbury. They met "as if for religious duties,** according to
Roger of Wendover, which would indicate that the meeting prob'
ably took place on or near the feast of St. Edmund, November 20.
The charter of Henry I, which Stephen Langton had shown them at
the council at St. Albans in August of the previous year, was pro*
222
duced and discussed. Again they received it with approval and en"
thusiasm because, although in the most vague and general terms, it
limited the power of the king in the exercise of his feudal authority.
The barons then gathered in the abbey church of St. Edmund
and, beginning with the greatest, swore before the high altar that if
John refused to grant the liberties and laws of the charter of Henry I
they would renounce their allegiance to him and make war on him
till he should grant and seal a charter embodying their demands. In
memory of this event, the Borough of Bury St. Edmunds counts
among its proud titles that of "Cunabulum Legis," as well as that of
"Sacrarium Regis/' Finally, the barons agreed that they would all go
together to the King immediately after Christmas and present their
demands to him and that in the interval they would arm and provision
themselves, so that if John refused their requests they would be able
to proceed at once to seize his castles and compel him to accede.
There is no record that Stephen Langton was present at this meet-
ing, in spite of the leading part he had played in calling the barons*
attention to the charter of Henry L Having once indicated to them
the objectives they should seek, he seems henceforth to have con-
centrated his efforts on inducing die King to arrive at an understand-
ing with his barons. Certainly he could hardly have united with them
in agreeing to make war on die King if he refused their demands.
John realized, as soon as he returned to England, that he was faced
by a potential opposition stronger and more widespread than any he
had encountered before. He did not know how many of his barons
he could depend upon; suspicious and distrustful as he was, he felt
that they were few. Among the bishops he could count on die sup-
port only of his own nominees; from the rest he could expect no
help. In order to placate the bishops and win them over to his side,
on November 21 he granted a charter conceding the right of free
election of their bishops to the cathedral chapters. This was merely
the confirmation of a customary right that the chapters, in theory at
-i 2 1 57 "The Field Called Runnymede" 2 2 3
least, had always enjoyed, but at any rate it promised an end to the
highhanded appointment of bishops that John and the Papal Legate
had been making, in violation of that right. He had previously, on
All Saints* Day, in accordance with his agreement, paid the Arch"
bishop and the bishops the semi-annual payment of six thousand
marks in compensation for their losses during the interdict.
The Queen during this year gave birth to her second daughter,
who was named Isabella after her mother. John's relations with his
Queen seem to have become strained after the royal couple returned
to England, for on December 3 he issued the following letter:
THE KING, to Theodoric the German. We command you to
go without delay to Qloucester with the Lady Queen and there
to confine her in the chamber in which Joan our daughter was
nursed, until we give other orders in this matter. We have com*
manded the Sheriff of Qloucester by our letter directed to him,
which we send to you, to receive her and to provide whatever is
necessary for her and for you. MYSELF AS WITNESS, at Corfe.
William the Lion, King of the Scots, died at Stirling on Decem-
ber 14 and was succeeded by his son Alexander, a lad then sixteen
years old.
John kept his Christmas court at Worcester, but he remained
there only one day. He then hurried up to London and stayed at the
New Temple.
The barons, as they had agreed, presented themselves before John
on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 121 5. They were in mili*
tary array, and their bold tones in speaking to the King showed their
determination. They demanded that he restore the good laws of King
Edward and the provisions of the charter of Henry I, as he had sworn
to do when he was absolved at Winchester in 1213.
John replied that so serious a matter required due deliberation, and
224
he proposed that they agree to a truce till Low Sunday, April 26, to
give him time to consult with his advisors. The barons were familiar
with his delaying tactics and were unwilling to be put off with prom-
ises they knew would prove vain. After much discussion, John sug-
gested that three of the most respected men of the kingdom stand
surety for his good faith, and the barons agreed. Stephen Langton,
Archbishop of Canterbury, Eustace, Bishop of Ely, and William
Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, accordingly took oath that the King
would on the appointed day satisfy all their reasonable demands.
In order to make sure of the support of the clerical party, John
renewed his charter to the Church in more explicit terms on Janu-
ary 15. He promised that, no matter what customs might hitherto
have been observed and what rights he and his ancestors might have
claimed, in all the cathedrals and abbeys of England the election of
prelates should be free forever henceforth. He reserved to himself
and his heirs, however, the custody and revenues of vacant sees, but
he promised not to hinder or delay elections, provided the permission
to elect had first been asked. That permission he promised not to
refuse or delay, and he agreed that if he should refuse or delay to
give his consent the electors were authorized to proceed with the
election as though the permission had been given. He stipulated that
after the election had been made his assent should be asked, and he
promised not to refuse his assent unless he could give a legitimate
reason for doing so. He sent a copy of this charter to the Pope and
asked him to confirm it.
Having thus, as he hoped, got the Pope and the bishops on his
side, John had all the nobles of the kingdom to swear fealty to him
alone against all men and to renew their homage to him. As a final
precaution, on Candlemas, February 2, he assumed the Cross of the
Crusader, which in theory protected his person and his lands from
all attacks of his enemies. As Roger of Wendover points out, he did
-i 2 is] "Tfhe Field Called Runnymede" 22$
this through fear rather than through devotion, for it is most unlikely
that he had any intention of emulating his brother Richard's heroic
example.
Eustace, Bishop of Ely, died at Reading Abbey on February 3
and was buried in his cathedral He was a man of great knowledge
and discretion, and he added a Galilee porch to his cathedral, the
glory of the Fenlands.
Innocent III on March 30 confirmed the charter granted by "Our
well-beloved John, the illustrious King of the English/* to the ca*
thedral churches of England, and John could feel that he had
strengthened his hand at die Papal Curia.
Master Alexander, Johns favorite theologian during the interdict,
had been richly rewarded with various benefices, but when the Arch"
bishop and the rest of the clergy returned to England, he was stripped
of all his livings. He determined to appeal to the Pope, and John
gave him a letter of recommendation:
To his lord and most holy father, Innocent, by the grace of God
Supreme Pontiff, JOHN, by the same grace, ETC. Be it known
to Tour Holiness that those lies that were put upon Master Alex*
ander of St. Albans, our clerk, were spread by the breath of
malice, wherefore it may fittingly be said without a shadow of
falsehood that what was put upon Isaias by the Jewish people,
upon Moses for the Ethiopian woman, upon Paul for the Seven
Churches, that also was put upon Master Alexander by the slan'
derous mob. Therefore it is that we most devoutly beseech Tour
Paternity, if it should happen that the same Master Alexander
presents himself at the feet of Tour Holiness, to deign to show
him all humanity, according to the multitude of your mercy, for
the love of Qod and of us. WITNESSED at the New Temple in
London, on the zsrd day of April.
226
From the muddled Scriptural allusions, from the effrontery of
comparing Master Alexander to Moses, Isaias, and St. Paul, and
from the sudden descent from the pompous Latin to the vernacular
"sevnchurches," one is led to suspect that Master Alexander himself
composed this letter and brought it to John for his seal.
John entrusted his younger son Richard to his faithful friend Peter
de Maulay on April 29 :
WE SEND to you our beloved son 'Richard, commanding you to
take good and diligent care of him and to provide him and his
tutor, Roger, and two trumpeters and his washerwoman with all
things necessary for them.
The disaffected barons assembled at Stamford during Easter
Week, April 1926, with a great show of strength, armed and ac*
companied by their retainers. The army numbered two thousand
knights, in addition to the horse and foot soldiers and the attendants.
Roger of Wendover gives a list of the "chief promoters of this
pestilence/* and an examination of some of the names involved indi'
cates how widespread the disaffection was and what prominent nobles
were concerned in it.
The principal leader of the baronial party was Robert FitzWalter,
one of die richest men in England. He engaged in trade, and the
King gave him special privileges for his wine ships. He was Lord of
Dunmow in Essex and of Baynard's Castle in the southwest of Lon"
don. His wife, Gunnor, the daughter and heiress of Robert of Va^
lognes, brought him some thirty knights' fees in the North. With
Saer de Quincy he had been governor of Vaudreuil in Normandy
and had ignominiously surrendered it without resistance to Philip in
1203. By this act of cowardice they became the laughingstock of
England and France. Philip put them in prison and held them for a
ransom of five thousand marks. When John demanded hostages from
-12 157 "The Field Called Runnymede" 227
the nobles whom he suspected of plotting against him in 1212,
Robert confessed his guilt by fleeing to France. He contrived to con-
vince the exiled bishops that he was being persecuted in their cause,
and John was forced to grant him peace and forgiveness as one of the
terms of his reconciliation with the Church. Robert returned to Eng-
land with the exiled clergy, and John restored his estates to him,
Later legends say that he had a daughter, Matilda, whom John tried
to seduce. When she refused his advances, John had her poisoned*
Since these legends confuse "The Chaste Matilda" with Robin
Hood's Maid Marian, not much credence is to be given them.
Eustace de Vesci, who had married Margaret, a bastard daughter
of William the Lion, was a close associate of Robert FitzWalter. He
took a prominent part in the negotiations that led to William's act of
homage to John at Lincoln in 1200. When Robert FitzWalter fled
to France, Eustace at the same time escaped to Scotland. He too was
named in John's charter of submission, and the King likewise restored
his lands to him.
Another of the disaffected barons was Richard Percy, one of the
Northern magnates. He was a grandson of Godfrey, Duke of Bra-
bant. His father, Joscelin of Louvain, married Agnes, the heiress of
the great Percy family, and took her name. Richard accumulated vast
estates in the North. He took over the administration of the lands be-
longing to his older brother's son, a minor; he seized his mother's
lands when she died in 1 1 96, and he inherited the lands of his aunt,
the Countess of Warwick.
Robert de Ros had married Isabella, another bastard daughter of
William the Lion, and had also been one of the envoys to Scotland in
1 200. John made him Sheriff of Cumberland in 1 2 1 3 and gave him
a license to send a ship laden with wool and hides across the seas and
to bring back a cargo of wine. In spite of these favors, his connection
with Eustace de Vesci and his properties in the North outweighed his
allegiance to the King.
228
Saer de Quincy, the first Earl of Winchester, had an early start
in the practice of rebellion, for in his youth he had joined the young
Henry in his war against the King in 1 173. He shared with Robert
FhzWalter the ignominy of the surrender of Vaudreuil. He had little
property and was often in debt to the Jews. In 1204, however, he
came into extensive lands. He had married Margaret, the daughter
of Robert of Beaumont, Earl of Leicester. Robert died in 1 1 90, and
his son and heir, Robert "FitzParnell/' died childless in 1204. The
vast Leicester estates were then divided between Amicia, who had
married Simon de Montfort, and Margaret. Saer de Quincy, as the
husband of the younger heiress, was created Earl of Winchester by
John in 1207. He was one of the King's fusticiars from 1211 to
1214, and it is not clear why he should have joined the conspiracy.
Richard, Earl of Clare, and his son Gilbert were among the few
surviving members of the old Norman nobility, most of whom had
disappeared or been disposed of by the time of Henry II. Richard,
the sixth Earl, was a second cousin of Isabel of Clare, the heiress of
the younger branch of the family, who married William Marshal.
Richard had married Amicia, one of the three heiresses of William,
Earl of Gloucester, and he and his son Gilbert were among the
greatest nobles in the land.
Roger Bigod, the second Earl of Norfolk, was likewise a member
of a Norman family. His father had distinguished himself by his
treachery and turbulence during the reigns of Stephen and Henry II;
his mother was Juliana, a sister of Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford.
Roger was a justiciar under Richard and John, but he lost the King's
favor and was imprisoned in 1213. During the next year, however,
he accompanied John to Poitou. By 1215 he was out of favor again
and in rebellion against the King.
William Mowbray was the nephew of Richard, Earl of Clare;
his mother Mabel was Richard's sister. Mowbray was one of the
barons who fortified their castles and prepared for civil war when
-12 J57 "The Field Called Runnymede" 223
John succeeded to the throne. He was pacified, however, by the
promises made by the King's representatives at Northampton and
took the oath of fealty to him.
Robert de Vere, die third Earl of Oxford and hereditary Great
Chamberlain of England, was the younger brother of Aubrey de
Vere, who had been one of the King's "evil counsellors'* during the
interdict. Aubrey died without issue in 1214, and Robert, upon
succeeding to the title and estates, joined the party of the Northern
barons.
William Mallett, a descendant of a companion of the Conqueror,
was appointed Sheriff of Dorset and Somerset, in which latter county
his lands lay, in izi i, and in 1 214 he accompanied John to Poitou
with ten knights and twenty soldiers. Thus he could not have been
among the barons from whom John attempted to collected scutage in
1214, and his presence among the leaders of the confederation indi-
cates a discontent more deep-seated than a mere protest against the
payment of the scutage. Associated with him was William of Monta*
cute, likewise descended from a companion of the Conqueror and
the possessor of estates in Somerset. William de Beauchamp, Lord
of Bedford, had also taken part in John's last expedition to Poitou.
The name whose inclusion in this list seems die most surprising
is that of William Marshal die younger, the eldest son of that model
of fidelity and chivalry, William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who
had served Henry II and his sons with scrupulous honesty, faidiful"
ness, and loyalty, and who even at this time was one of John's most
trusted advisors. The younger William was married in 1214 and
seems to have come of age at about diat time. It is not evident diat
he had any specific grievances against the King, and his defection
was perhaps caused by his friendship with his modier's relatives, die
Clares.
Two sons of Geoffrey FitzPeter, John's former Chief Justiciar,
also took a prominent part in die rebellion. The elder son, Geoffrey,
230
resumed the name "de Mandeville," the old family name of the Earls
of Essex. In 1214 he married Hadwisa, John's divorced first wife,
and paid an enormous fine for the privilege. His younger brother,
William, married Christina, the daughter of Robert FitzWalter.
These marriages are probably sufficient explanation for the presence
of these two names in the list of rebellious barons.
John de Lacy, Constable of Chester, was the son of Roger, famed
for his fidelity and valor in the defense of Chateau'Gaillard in 1203.
He had apparently reached his majority only two years before he ad"
hered to the cause of the rebels, and no reason for his doing so is clear.
It is to be observed that not one of these man took any noteworthy
part in the government of the country, either before or after the
rebellion.
This list of names indicates that the disaffection was not limited to
any one part of the country or to any particular group of barons, but
that it was a general protest against John's increasingly despotic gov-
ernment. It began, to be sure, among the Northern barons, most of
whom refused to accompany John on his expedition to Poitou, and
for this reason the rebel party is usually referred to as the "North"
erners." The movement spread, however, chiefly to Lincolnshire
and to Essex, a county dominated by Robert FitzWalter. Roger of
Wendover says that the barons were led by Stephen Langton, who
was at their head. When they assembled, however, Langton was
with the King at Oxford, where he was awaiting their arrival, and
there is no evidence that the Archbishop took an active part in their
deliberations.
The barons went to Brackley, in Northamptonshire, on April 27.
When John learned that they were there, he sent Stephen Langton
and William Marshal, with other prudent men, to find out their de"
mands. The barons gave the messengers a list of the laws and estab-
lished customs of the kingdom that they said the King had been vio-
lating, and they threatened that unless he immediately promised to
-12 1 57 CC T7* Field Called Runnymede" 231
observe those laws and confirm his promise under his seal they would
seize his castles and force him to comply.
Stephen Langton and the other envoys returned to John with the
list and the messages of the barons. When their demands were read
to him, John exclaimed indignantly: "Why, among these unjust de-
mands, did the barons not ask for my kingdom as well? Their de*
mands are vain, foolish, and utterly unreasonable/ 5 He declared with
an oath that he would never grant his barons such liberties as would
make him their slave.
Neither Stephen Langton nor William Marshal could induce him
even to consider the demands. He sent them back to the barons with
the defiant message that he would grant none of them. This was
equivalent to a declaration of war. When the barons received John's
message they solemnly renounced their oaths of allegiance and fealty
to him, and a canon of Durham Cathedral released them from their
vows. They could now take up arms against the King with a clear
conscience.
They elected Robert FitzWalter their leader, with the resounding
title of "Marshal of the Army of God and of Holy Church/* and
proceeded to Northampton, where they laid siege to John's castle.
They had no stone-throwers or other engines of war and conse*
quently spent a fortnight in fruitless efforts to reduce it. They suffered
numerous casualties, and Robert FitzWalter's standard-bearer was
pierced through the head by an arrow from a crossbow.
John realized the seriousness of the situation and made an effort
to recall the more moderate barons to their allegiance. He wrote an
open letter on May 10, declaring, in terms identical with those used
later in the Great Charter, that he conceded "to our barons who are
against us, that we will not seize or dispossess them or their men, nor
will we proceed against them, except by the law of our realm or by
the judgment of their peers in our court, until such time as considera*
tion may be given by four men whom we will choose on our part
and four men whom they will elect on thek part, and by the Lord
Pope, who will be superior to them/*
He had alerted his knights in Poitou for possible service in Eng'
land during the preceding February, and he now summoned them
to his service, as the following letter shows:
THE KING, to his venerable father in Christ, Peter, by the
same grace Bishop of Winchester: GREETINGS. We command
you to send some discreet servant of yours in whom you have
confidence, together with your letters, to deliver our castle of
Winchester to our faithful Savaric de Mauleon to have custody
of and in which to receive our Poitevins. MYSELF AS WITNESS,
at Reading, on the nth day of May, in the i6th year of our
reign.
He also summoned all the knights of Devonshire to his service
and promised to pay the expenses of all except those that owed him
knight'service for thek lands.
The barons, meanwhile, abandoned their attempt on Northamp'
ton and went to Bedford, There they were welcomed by William
de Beauchamp, the lord of the castle. Messengers came to them from
the citizens of London, inviting them to come there immediately.
The barons at once set out. They camped at Ware and then, by
marching all night, arrived in London early in the morning of
May 24. The gates were open, and most of the citizens were at
Mass. The barons entered by Aldgate without meeting any resist"
ance, for the rich citizens favored their cause and the poor ones were
both unable and afraid to put up any protest.
The barons stationed guards at the gates and took over the city.
They sent letters to all the principal nobles who remained faithful to
the King, inviting them to join their cause and stand firm and fight
for thek rights and warning them that unless they did so the barons
-12 is] "The Field Called Runnymede" 233
would make war on them, destroy their castles, burn their houses,
and lay waste their lands. William of Albini, Lord of Belvoir, was
one of those who now deserted the King and joined the baronial
party.
John, on the other hand, issued a general warning concerning the
treachery of the Londoners:
THE KING, to all his bailiffs and faithful subjects. Be it known
that the citizens of London in common have fraudulently and
seditiously withdrawn from us and our service and our allegiance.
And therefore we command you, whenever they or their servants
or their chattels pass through your territory, to inflict upon them,
as our enemies, all the evil and shame that you can.
At this point Roger of Wendover gives a list of the barons who
were faithful to John and who were singled out by the rebels for
special attention. Among them were William Marshal, Earl of Pern"
broke, and his nephew, John Marshal, to whom the King had given
charge of Lincolnshire in the preceding January; Ranulf of Blunde^
vill, Earl of Chester, who had accompanied John to Poitou in 1 214
and to whom the King had entrusted the castle of Newcastle-under-
Tyne on May 20; William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury; William,
Earl of Warenne, John's cousin; William de Fors, Earl of Aumale
and Lord of Holderness; Henry, Earl of Cornwall, a bastard son of
Reginald of Cornwall and hence John's cousin; William of Albini,
Earl of Arundel, a grandson of Adeliza, Henry Ts widow, and also
John's cousin; Henry of Braybroc, a justiciar and under-sheriff of
Rutland, Buckingham, and Northampton; and Henry of Cornhill
and his son-in4aw, Hugh de Neville. Most of these men either were
related to John in some degree or were his trusted friends and serv-
ants. Even some of these, when they received the barons* letters, de-
serted their master and went over to the rebels.
234
The country was thrown into disorder, and the administrative and
judicial systems were paralyzed. The pleas of the Exchequer and of
the sheriffs* courts came to a stop throughout the land, because many
of the Barons of the Exchequer, the itinerant justices, the sheriffs,
and other officers of the King deserted him.
John realized that he was so deserted by his barons and their fol'
lowers that his castles were at their mercy and that he had no effective
forces left with which to defend himself. Roger of Wendover, with
great exaggeration, says that of his host of followers scarcely seven
knights remained faithful to him. He decided to pretend at least to
submit to his barons. He sent the faithful William Marshal with other
messengers to treat with them. He declared his willingness, for the
sake of peace and for the good of the kingdom, to grant the barons
the laws and liberties they demanded, and he asked them to appoint
a day and a place for a meeting at which these matters might be
discussed.
The messengers went to London and reported to the baronial
leaders. They were filled with joy at having brought the King to
submission without the necessity of waging civil war, and they sent
back word to John to meet them in a meadow lying between Staines
and Windsor, on the Thames, on Monday, June 1 5.
On the appointed day John, with the small group of his advisors
and friends, met the army of the barons. The two parties stationed
themselves at opposite ends of the field, and the parley began. It was
a long discussion, probably lasting all day, but John was defeated
and knew it, and he could not effectively resist the demands made of
him. The barons had, in the preceding April, sent the King a list
of their demands, and they would of course have formulated by this
time a rough draft at least of the charter they intended to wrest from
the King. The Great Charter is dated June 15, 1215, and it is
probable that by the end of that day John had capitulated to the sub-
stance of the barons* demands and perhaps had set his seal to a docu-
-1215] "The Field Called Runnymede* z 3 5
ment embodying them, although the discussion of precise wording
and of minor points continued for several days longer.
The Great Charter was wrested from John by a group composed
of his barons or tenants-in-chief, supported by their tenants and by
the richer citizens of London, with Stephen Langton, the Legate
Pandulf, and the bishops as more or less impartial witnesses and
referees. The majority of its provisions are directed towards clarify-
ing the nature of the feudal contract between John and his barons,
correcting the abuses which had crept into that contract, and defin*
ing the limits of the King's power not over the realm as a whole but
only over his barons. A second 'important group of provisions accepts
almost completely the legal reforms and innovations instituted by
Henry II and forces John to renounce those specific abuses of the
legal administration of which he had been guilty. A few short and
vague provisions are thrown in as sops to the under-tenants and to
the citizens of London, whose support was essential to the barons.
The document in those provisions relating to feudal tenure, dues,
and services is reactionary in principle; it looks back to the time of
Henry I and makes no provision for the changes in the structure of
society which had occurred since then. The chapters dealing with
legal procedure, however, are less reactionary in spirit. They express
a deep and merited distrust of John and his personal followers and a
profound respect for the integrity and competence of the royal
justices. These chapters would seem to have been formulated by men
brought up in the tradition of the great school of lawyers trained
under Henry II by Ranulf Glanville, Hubert Walter, and other
members of the Curia Regis. There is no attempt to re-establish the
legal jurisdictions of the barons that Henry had taken away from
them; the competence of the royal courts is not challenged. Most
impressive of all is the fact that in the long list of grievances and
complaints of extortion, venality, violation of due custom, rapacity,
and abuses of the royal power, no word is said in disparagement of
236
the royal courts and the judicial system. John was an evil tyrant, as
almost every chapter of the Charter implicitly asserts, but it is evident
that he did not carry his tyranny to its logical end. The King's Court
and the justices appointed by him and responsible only to him are
above reproach; men have no confidence in the King but all confi-
dence in his courts. Not even in his most evil moments did it occur
to him to attempt to corrupt the fountain of justice, appoint venal
and subservient justiciars, and use the courts as an instrument of his
tyranny. No more impressive monument to the memory of Henry II
could be found than the fact that even John still respected the judi-
cial system that he had devised and made no attempt to undermine it.
In the preamble John states his motives for granting the Charter:
"Out of respect for God, and for the health of our soul and of those
of all our ancestors and heirs, to the honor of God and the exaltation
of Holy Church, and for the amending of our reign." Then follows
a list of those by whose counsel he has acted: Stephen Langton, the
Archbishop of Dublin, the Bishops of London, Winchester, Bath,
Lincoln, Worcester, Coventry, and Rochester; Master Pandulf,
"the sub-deacon and familiar of our lord the Pope"; the Master of
the Knights of the Temple; the Earls of Pembroke, Salisbury, War-
enne, and Arundel; the Constable of Scotland; Warren FitzGerald,
Peter FitzHerbert, Hubert de Burgh, Seneschcal of Poitou, Hugh
de Neville, Matthew FitzHerbert, Thomas and Alan Basset, Philip
of Albini, Robert of Roppesley, John Marshal, and John FitzHugh.
Most of these laymen were mentioned by Roger of Wendover in his
list of men faithful to John.
The first chapter of the Charter declares that the English Church
shall be free and have her rights entire and her liberties inviolate and
confirms the freedom of elections that John had already granted in
his charters of November 1214, and January 1215. This is the ex-
tent of John's concessions to the Church, and the fact that it carries
only an assertion that the Church shall be free, a statement so vague
12 15] "The Field Called Runnymede" 237
as to be almost meaningless, and a repetition of a right already
granted twice over would seem to indicate that Stephen Langton had
little active part in the framing of the barons* demands. If he were in*
deed one of the men primarily responsible for the formulation of the
document, it seems strange that he did not see fit to include a number
of the disputed points that had long been a source of friction between
the Crown and the Church. Now, if ever, when John was at the
mercy of his barons and faced by an array of force that could have
intimidated him into accepting almost anything they chose to put
before him, was the time to induce him to renounce the wardship of
ecclesiastical lands during a vacancy, to extend the jurisdiction of the
courts Christian, to exempt the clergy from aids, scutages, and lev-
ies, and to extend the sphere of clerical influence. That none of these
is mentioned would make it seem that Stephen Langton's part in the
proceedings, no matter how much encouragement he may have given
to the barons in private, was limited, in his official capacity, to that of
an impartial witness and referee between the King and his barons.
This chapter concludes with the statement that "we concede to all
free men of our kingdom ... all the underwritten liberties/* The
words "free men" deprive the document of that universal application
to all Englishmen of whatever degree that is sometimes claimed for
it. Villeins were not free men, and perhaps three men out of four at
this time were villeins. Neither John nor his barons were concerned
with them; such rights as they had depended on the custom of the
manor and the will of their lords.
The barons then proceeded to a separate listing of their grievances
and the remedies they proposed for them. These are examined in
some detail in the Appendix to this book, both because they furnish
valuable light on the structure of the society of die time and because
they indicate the sort of conduct of which John had been guilty. Seen
in this light, the Great Charter is a summing up of all of John's abuses
of his power and position, of his flagrant disregard for die established
238
customary rights of his barons, and of the rapacity with which he
seized upon every pretext to extort money from his subjects.
The greater share of the blame for the abuses of John's reign
should of course be laid on the King's personal viciousness, his lack
of principle, honor, and decency, his indifference to the claims of re*
ligion, his contempt for those standards of chivalry and manly cour-
age that made Richard the idol of his age, and his determination to
extort every possible penny from his subjects. None of these can be
in any way extenuated or condoned. It should be borne in mind,
however, that John's troubles were primarily financial; that the ordi-
nary revenues of the Crown were by no means sufficient to meet the
vast expenses that his attempts first to hold and later to regain his con-
tinental possessions entailed; and that the worst of his excesses arose
directly from his pressing need for money. As King of England, Lord
of Ireland, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of An-
jou, and the rest, John felt it his duty to hold on to those lands at any
cost, once he had recovered from the pathological fit of languor that
caused him to let Normandy slip from his grasp without a struggle;
if the ordinary revenues of the Crown were not enough for his needs,
he supplemented them by any means that occurred to him.
Although the Exchequer was an office of ever-increasing impor-
tance and complexity, it does not seem to have occurred to its offi*
cials to draw up anything resembling a budget. The King lived from
hand to mouth; no attempt was made to estimate future expenditure
or anticipated income, and when the King needed money he cast
about for the quickest and easiest way of raising it. The individual
chapters of the Great Charter are clear evidence of what some of
those ways were.
After the long list of specific abuses and the steps to be taken to
right them that make up the body of the Charter, die document con-
eludes with a number of general provisions relating to the scope of
the Charter and the means whereby it is to be enforced.
-12 1 57 '"Hie Field Called Runnymede" 239
Chapter Sixty-one, the longest and most complicated one of the
Charter, contains the "form of security for the observance of the
peace and liberties" and sets up the involved machinery for securing
the observance of the provisions of the Charter. The assembled
barons are to elect twenty-five of their number, who are with all
their might to observe, hold, and cause to be observed the peace and
liberties that John has conceded to them. If the King or any of his
officers wrongs anyone or transgresses any of the provisions of the
Charter, the offense is to be reported to four of the members of the
committee of twenty-five, and the four barons are then to come be-
fore the King or his Chief Justiciar, if the King is out of the country,
and petition for redress of the wrong. If the wrong is not righted
within forty days, the four barons shall so report to the whole com-
mittee of twenty-five, and they, together with die "community of
the whole land/ 3 shall be authorized to force the King to comply by
seizing his castles, lands, and possessions and by any other measures
short of harming the King's person and the persons of his wife and
children.
Everyone throughout the country is to swear to obey the twenty"
five barons and to help them, if need be, in forcing the King to obey
the Charter. The committee of twenty-five is to be a self-perpetuat-
ing body; if any member dies or leaves the country, the remainder
are to elect another in his place. Furthermore, in case there is dis-
agreement among the twenty-five or in case not all of them are able
to be present, matters shall be decided by a majority of those present.
Finally, John promised not to seek anything from anyone by
which any of these concessions and liberties might be revoked or
diminished. This was put in to prevent him from appealing to the
Pope, whom he had recognized as his feudal overlord, to cancel or
annul any of the provisions of the Charter.
This device for securing John's compliance with the Charter
seems vague in many respects and awkward and unworkable in
240
others. It must be remembered, however, that this was an unprece-
dented experiment in trying to force a king to keep the law. The
barons knew John well enough to realize that they would have ac-
complished little indeed in forcing him to seal a charter and swear a
solemn oath with many witnesses to keep it. Outright deposition, al-
though there were precedents for it in the time before the Conquest,
no doubt seemed to them too extreme a course to be followed at the
present juncture because the sentiment of the country probably would
not have supported it. There was no claimant to the throne whom
the country would accept as king, and of course any form of govern-
ment other than a monarchy was so far removed from their experience
and the political theory of the day as to be quite unthinkable. More-
over, John was under the direct protection of the Pope, his overlord,
and of the Cross he had taken as a crusader, and the moderate party,
headed no doubt by Stephen Langton and still powerful in the coun-
cils of the barons, would not have accepted such an extreme measure.
Hence it is a credit to their ingenuity, their resourcefulness in the
field of government and administration, and their moderation that
they should have devised a scheme so novel for its day. The threat
of proceeding to open violence as a last resort was probably intended
by them not as an actual eventuality but as a means of convincing
John that they meant business and that the whole country would help
them in forcing him to right their wrongs. The composition of the
committee would further impress John with the conviction that they
would not lightly acquiesce in further misgovemment or condone any
infraction of his oath. Of the list of the twenty-five barons as given
by Matthew Paris, only two, William de Fors, Earl of Aumale, and
William of Albini, Earl of Arundel, were among the small number
of John's supporters, whilst fourteen, Robert FitzWalter, Eustace
de Vesci, Richard Percy, Robert de Ros, Saer de Quincy, Gilbert
of Clare, Roger and Hugh Bigod, William of Mowbray, Robert
de Vere, William Mallett, William Marshal the younger, William
-12 is] "The Field Called Runnymede" 241
Huntingfield, and John de Lacy, were named by Roger of Wen"
dover among the leaders of the baronial party.
Chapter Sixty-two pardons all transgressions occasioned by the
discord between the King and his barons and committed since the
last Easter.
The concluding chapter declares that it is the King's will that the
English Church be free and that the men in his kingdom may have
and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, for them-
selves and their heirs, in all things and places. It concludes: "Given
by our hand in the field called Runnymede, between Windsor and
Staines, on the i $th day of June, in the i/th year of our reign/'
^ CHAPTER. XII]
"TO GOD
AND ST. WULFSTAN
I HE NEGOTIATIONS concerning the Char-
ter were carried on from Monday, June 1 5, till Friday,
June 19. When they were concluded, each side remained
in wary watchfulness, the King at Windsor and the barons in Lon^
don. On the i gth John sent letters to all his sheriffs, forest officers,
bailiffs, and other officials, announcing that by God's grace a firm
peace had been restored between him and his barons and free men,
as they might see by the copies of the Charter that he was sending
to each of them. He ordered that the Charter be publicly read in
each bailiwick and firmly observed. Sheriffs were ordered to cause
every one to swear to obey the twenty-five barons in the contingen"
cies mentioned in the Charter and to take an oath to that effect at a
time and place to be appointed by the barons. At the next county
court twelve knights were to be elected to inquire into all abuses by
the King's officers.
John was immediately besieged by a host of claimants to lands
-J2i6j "To Qod and St. Wulfstan" 24 3
and castles of which they said he had illegally disseized them, but he
refused to be rushed into a wholesale relinquishment. He replied
that they had to support their claims by the testimony of trustworthy
men, and he appointed August 1 6 as the day when he would hear
their claims at Westminster. He did, however, restore the Tower of
London and Rochester Castle to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who
was entitled to them by ancient custom.
He also released some of his hostages and returned castles to their
owners, as the following letters of June 21 show:
THE KING, to the Constable of Northampton: GREETINGS.
We command you without delay to deliver to Henry, the son of
Earl David, the bearer of this letter, all hostages of the same Earl
David who are in your custody.
THE KING, to Saer, Earl of Winchester: GREETINGS. We
command you that, inasmuch as Earl David had done his horn*
age to us, you return to him his castle of Fotheringhay, which
we had committed to your care; and if perchance he should die
before he has made his homage to us, then do you deliver up the
castle to us.
On June 23 he wrote to Hugh of Boves, the leader of his mer-
cenary troops, who was waiting at Dover for further orders. John
directed him not to keep any of the soldiers, but to send them back
to their homes across the Channel without delay. He also wrote on
the same date to Stephen Harengod, informing him that peace had
been made and that the barons had tendered their homage. He or-
dered Stephen to collect no more fines on account of the barons* re"
volt, to return any money that he might have collected since the
final ratification of the peace on the igth, and to release all captives
and hostages taken during die troubles.
244
Whether or not John acted in good faith in these matters is im*
possible to tell, but the available evidence would seem to indicate
that he did* During the period immediately following the sealing of
the Charter, at any rate, he took steps to put into effect those provi-
sions that might be accomplished by his command alone. His letter
dismissing the foreign mercenaries is perhaps the best indication that
he thought that the crisis had passed and the immediate danger was
over.
Another sign that he was convinced that peace had been attained
was the fact that he began collecting the jewels that he had put in
various religious houses for safekeeping. The items mentioned in the
following receipt, although they are not so costly as some of the
jewels that he entrusted to other houses, show how John loved to
adorn his person:
THE KING, to all ETC. Be it known that on the Friday next
after the nativity of St. John the Baptist we received at Win-
chester from the hands of Nicholas, Canon of Waltham, 13
silver cups weighing 50 marks and 3 ounces and a half, and one
brooch with 6 sapphires and 6 garnets, and another brooch with
3 sapphires and 3 garnets and various other stones, and a third
brooch with 2 sapphires and 4 garnets and 2 pearls and small
turquoises, and a fourth brooch with 2 sapphires and 4 garnets
and 2 pearls and other small stones, and a fifth brooch with small
sapphires and small garnets, and a sixth brooch with 8 green
jaspers. Also one belt of smooth black leather with which the
King is wont to gird himself, and another belt of red leather with
sections with small lions, and a third belt of chased red leather,
and a fourth belt of red leather with stones in the buckle and
tongue and with raised sections, and a fifth belt of red leather^
with 1 1 green jaspers, and a sixth belt of Hack leather with sec*
tions with various stones in the buckle and the sections. 'These
-izi6] "To Qod and St. Wulfstan 9 24$
were all entrusted to the Abbot, the Prior, and the convent of
Waltham for safekeeping by our orders, and in testimony of this
matter we have had this our letter patent made for them. MY-
SELF AS WITNESS, at Winchester, on the z/th day of June, in
the i jth year of our reign.
The barons, however, took no such view of matters. They re*
mained in London with their forces and showed no inclination to
disperse. They watched the King with distrustful eyes, and to John
it must have seemed that they were preparing to use force again and
heap further indignities upon them. To keep themselves in martial
spirits, to make a show of their strength for the benefit of the King,
and no doubt to provide a spectacle for their friends and allies, the
citizens of London, they staged a tournament at Hounslow on July 6.
Robert FitzWalter, "Marshal of the Army of God and of Holy
Church/* and the other great men of that army sent a letter of invi-
tation to William of Albini. After he had deserted the King in May,
William had supported the barons at Runnymede and then retired
to his castle of Belvoir. They pointed out the strategic importance of
London and warned that certain people were only waiting for them
to leave die city so that they might occupy it. They had therefore
agreed to have a tournament, for their security and the safety of
London, and they invited William to come provided with horses
and arms, so that he might win honor there. As a final inducement,
Robert FitzWalter added: "Whoever does best there will have a
bear, which a certain lady will send to the tournament/*
Perhaps on the grounds that he already had a bear, William did
not accept the invitation but remained at Belvoir.
Even if he had once intended to adhere to the provisions of the
Charter and submit his actions to the hostile scrutiny of the commit-
tee of barons, John now realized, from the fact that they remained
under arms in London, that they were plotting further mischief. He
246
accordingly set to work to free himself from that humiliating agree*
ment and to revenge himself on the men who had brought him so
low. Roger of Wendover says that he determined to strike at his
enemies with two swords, the one spiritual and the other material. To
sharpen the spiritual sword, he sent Pandulf to Rome to show the
Pope a copy of the Charter, and, despite his promise not to do so,
to induce Innocent to absolve him from his oath to observe it.
The fulsome language of the letter that Pandulf carried from
John to the Pope is in marked contrast to the intemperate terms in
which he had formerly addressed Innocent:
To his reverend lord and most holy father, Innocent, by the
grace of God Supreme Pontiff; JOHN, by the same grace King
of England ETC.: GREETINGS and the reverence due to such a
lord and father.
We bow down before the presence of Tour Paternity and
offer, as best we know 'how to and can, many thanks for the care
and solicitude which your paternal benevolence unceasingly de*
votes to our defence and that of our realm of England, although
the hardness of heart of the prelates of England and their dis-
obedience maliciously impede the effect of your pious foresight.
We, however, devotedly acknowledge the sincere affection
which Tour Clemency bears to us and which, although at pres-
ent it is thought useless by the proud and the malevolent, to their
folly, will yet be, Qod willing, to our safety and peace and will
bring confusion and terror to our enemies.
And although the Lord Pandulf, your faithful sub'deacon
and the Bishop>-elect of Norwich, is most necessary to us in Eng-
land, inasmuch as he faithfully and devotedly upholds the honor
of the Roman Church and ours and that of our whole realm, yet
in no other way can Your Paternity be better informed of our
condition and that of our realm than by him.
~i2i67 "To Qod and St. Wulfstan* 247
We therefore reluctantly send him to your feet, devoutly beg-
ging that when you have learned from him especially and from
our other faithful messengers of the injuries which have been in-
flicted upon you in our person, you will apply the hand of your
paternal sollicitude to the governing of our realm and the keeping
of our dignity, accordingly as your excellent discretion deems
expedient what by Qod's grace you have done and are doing.
Holding for certain that we have, after Qod, your person and
the authority of the Apostolic See as a friend and singular defence,
we breathe in the confidence of your protection.
The "other faithful messengers" were the members of an impos-
ing delegation that included the Archbishops of Bordeaux and Dub-
lin, Richard de Mariscis, the King's Chancellor, the Abbot of John's
monastery at Beaulieu, and John Marshal and Geoffrey Lutterel.
The letter they bore was intended further to incite the Pope against
the barons. "Although the earls and barons of England were devoted
to us before we submitted ourself and our land to your rule/' John
plaintively observed, "since that time and because of that, as they
publicly say, they violently rise up against us/'
To prepare the material sword, at some time during the summer
John sent his trusted servants Walter Grey, Bishop of Worcester,
Richard de Marisco, William Gernon, and Hugh of Boves to the
Continent in an effort to raise an army there. His agents were em-
powered to offer lands and money to all who would join his forces
and to give warrants to the soldiers for their pay. These forces were
ordered to assemble at Dover at Michaelmas. Throughout England
he directed the constables of the royal castles to lay in stocks of pro-
visions and arms and to increase their garrisons so as to be ready to
defend the castles at a day's notice.
When Pandulf and the other messengers arrived in Rome, they
reported all that had taken place between John and his barons to the
248
Pope and showed him a copy of the Charter. When he read it, In"
nocent exclaimed: "Are the barons of England trying to depose a
King signed with the Crusader's Cross and placed under the protec-
tion of the Apostolic See and to transfer to another the dominion of
the Roman Church? By St. Peter, we cannot let this injury go un-
punished I"
After he had consulted with his Cardinals, on August 24 he
issued a bull reciting the injuries "our dearest son in Christ, John,
the illustrious King of the English/ 5 had suffered at the hands of his
barons, forbidding, as overlord of England, under pain of excom-
munication, either the King to observe or the barons and their ac-
complices to force him to observe the provisions of the Charter, and
declaring that document utterly null and void.
At the same time he sent a letter to "the noble men of England/*
ordering them to renounce the Charter they had obtained by force
and threats, by which they constituted themselves both judges and
executioners. Innocent directed them to send proctors to the forth-
coming Council of the Lateran to appear before him. He would
then, he said optimistically, so arrange matters that the King would
be content with his rights and honors and the people would rejoice
in peace and liberty.
With this annulment of the Charter by the Pope, the only author-
ity the barons would recognize as superior to both themselves and
the King, John had been eminently successful in his use of the spir-
itual sword. The controversy over the election of the Archbishop of
York gave him an opportunity to humiliate Stephen Langton, whom
he had never trusted and who, he was now convinced, was one of
the prime movers of the barons" rebellion, encouraging them in every
way and putting his learning and ingenuity at their service.
The archepiscopal see of York had been vacant since the death of
Geoffrey, the King's half-brother, in exile in 1212. During die
troubled June of 1215, hardly a propitious time, the canons met to
-12 i 6] "To Qod and St. Wulfstan" 249
elect an archbishop, and John sent them a letter from Runnymede
recommending Walter Grey, newly consecrated Bishop of Worces"
ter, formerly Chancellor of the kingdom, and the brother of John
Grey, Bishop of Norwich. Walter had been educated at Oxford,
and the canons of York, who may all have been Cambridge men,
rejected him because he was, they said, illiterate. Instead they chose,
on account of his learning, one of their fellow canons, Simon Lang"
ton, the younger brother of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
John viewed this attempt to elevate Stephen Langton's brother as
instigated by the baronial party, and he knew that if they succeeded
it would be a great triumph for them and for Stephen Langton. He
at once sent ambassadors to protest to the Pope against this election.
Stephen Langton, they declared, had aided and abetted the barons
in their rebellion against the King, and if Stephen's brother were
made Archbishop of York the two Primates between them would
succeed in destroying the peace of the kingdom. They intimated to
the Pope that Walter Grey would be most pleasing to the King as
the new Archbishop.
Giving ear to John's objections, on September 13 Innocent re>
fused to approve the election of Simon Langton, declared it null and
void, and ordered the canons of York to send proctors to Rome to
conduct the election before him and with his advice. If the Arch"
bishop of Canterbury could properly be elected in such a manner,
so also could the Archbishop of York.
There was yet a sharper and more powerful spiritual sword to be
used against John's enemies, and the Pope obligingly placed it in his
hands. In a letter addressed to Peter des Roches, Bishop of Win"
chester, the Abbot of Reading, and Pandulf, Innocent accused the
Archbishop of Canterbury and some of his bishops of ignoring the
business of the Crusade, the mandates of the Apostolic See, and their
own oaths of fealty by giving no help or favor to the King against
the disturbers of the kingdom but on the contrary, of being in the
councils of these disturbers, if not actual participants in their wicked
conspiracy*
These men, declared the Pope, were worse than Saracens, since
they were trying to drive from his throne the very man who was
planning to come to the help of the Holy Land. Therefore Innocent
laid the bonds of excommunication on all these disturbers of the King
and the realm of England, together with their accomplices and
helpers, and laid their lands under interdict. He most strictly ordered
the Archbishop and his bishops to proclaim this sentence throughout
all England on every Sunday and feast day with bells ringing and
candles lighted, till such time as the said disturbers made satisfaction
to the King for their misdeeds and faithfully returned to his service.
If any bishop neglected to obey this order, he was to be suspended
from his office and his subjects released from their obedience to him.
None of the bishops paid much attention to this bull of excom-
munication, and Stephen Langton did not publish it in his province.
Peter des Roches and Pandulf, therefore, who had been charged by
the Pope to see that his orders were carried out, went to the Arch-
bishop to discover why he had not obeyed the instructions. They
found Stephen Langton already aboard a ship, ready to start on his
way to Rome to the General Council, the Fourth Lateran, that had
been summoned to meet on November i. Armed with the papal
commands, they ordered him to direct his suflragan bishops to pub-
lish the sentence of excommunication in the manner specified.
The Cardinal replied that a tacit sentence had indeed been pro-
nounced against the barons, but he refused to publish it or to order
his suffragans to do so till he had appealed with his own voice to the
Supreme Pontiff. The Pope had provided Peter des Roches and
Pandulf with powers to meet just such a contingency, and they
therefore pronounced the sentence of suspension upon him, forbid-
ding him to enter a church or to celebrate Mass.
-I2i6] "To Qod and St. Wulfstan* 2 5 i
Stephen Langton humbly observed this sentence and went to
Rome as a suspended prelate, forbidden to exercise his priestly office,
out of favor with the Pope, to whom he owed his elevation to the
episcopacy, hated by his King, who had procured his humiliation,
discredited in the eyes of his fellow bishops, and with nothing to show
for his efforts as the successor of St. Augustine except a land torn by
a civil war that he was accused of having fomented. Hot on his heels
followed the King's proctors, the Abbot of Beaulieu and two knights,
Thomas Hardington and Geoffrey of Crawcombe, to present their
master's complaints against the Primate.
John had had the spiritual weapons of interdict and excommuni-
cation used against him, and he knew how little impression they
made on a thick skin. Some of his barons had skins as thick as his,
and against them he prepared to use the material sword. He spent
July and August in going from one royal castle to another, making
sure that they were in a state of readiness. On September i he ar-
rived at Dover, and he spent that month there and in Canterbury,
preparing for the arrival at Michaelmas of the foreign mercenaries
being recruited by Hugh of Boves and his other agents abroad.
Meanwhile all sorts of wild stories about him were circulating
through the country, spread, perhaps, by agents of the barons to add
to the general confusion. Some said that he had become a fisherman;
others, a merchant or a roving pirate; some said that he had turned
apostate; others, that he had drowned. Even the usually well-
informed Roger of Wendover says that he hid in the Isle of Wight
for three months, living in the open with sailors.
Around Michaelmas his mercenaries began pouring in. "From
Poitou and Gascony came Savaric de Mauleon and Geoffrey and
Oliver de Buteville with many knights and soldiers and promised
faithful service to the King; from Louvain and Brabant came Walter
Buck and Gerard and Godeschal de Soceinne wth three battalions
of soldiers and crossbowmen who thirsted for nothing so much as for
human blood; and from Flanders and other provinces came many
who wanted die goods of others and who gave die King great hopes/*
says Roger of Wendover.
These mercenary soldiers, or Brabantines, as they were commonly
called, were the scum and the scourge of Europe. Recruited from
the dregs of society, they plundered, ravaged, and pillaged wherever
they went, spreading terror and destruction in their wake. They
brought an element of cold-Wooded ferocity into mediaeval warfare
that appalled their contemporaries, most of whom observed the code
of chivalry and fought as though a battle were merely a glorified
tournament. Their conduct was so inhuman that the Third Lateran
Council forbade any Christian ruler to employ them.
Hugh of Boves collected a large army and set sail from Calais. A
great storm arose, and they were shipwrecked in the Channel.
Hugh's body was washed ashore at Yarmouth, and thus he came to
claim Suffolk, which, together with Norfolk, John had promised him
as a reward for his help. The beaches around Yarmouth were littered
with the bodies of drowned soldiers and their wives and children, and
the story spread that John had promised to drive out or exterminate
the English and give the land to these foreigners. Roger of Wen"
dover says that they numbered more than forty thousand, and they
were all devoured by the beasts of the sea and the birds of the air.
When news of this disaster was brought to John, he was almost mad
with rage and disappointment and took no food that day.
The barons meanwhile had not been idle. They remained in
strength in London and wrote many letters to William of Albini, the
Lord of Belvoir, reproaching him for not joining them and urging
him to come to London. At Michaelmas he yielded to their en-
treaties. After stocking his castle of Belvoir with provisions and arms
and entrusting it to faithful men, he joined the barons. They told him
of a plan they had conceived. The King with his large host of mer"
-12 1 6] "?o Qod and St. Wulfstan* z 5 3
cenaries was at Dover, and the barons proposed to block the roads
and bottle him up in Kent, so that he could not besiege them in
London.
Stephen Langton, to whom the King had entrusted Rochester
Castle, had turned it over to the barons. They picked a strong body
of troops, amounting to a hundred and forty knights and their reti-
nues, placed them under the command of William of Albini, whom
they knew to be of stout heart and well versed in the arts of war, and
sent them to occupy the city of Rochester. Thus they would com-
mand the road between Dover and London. To bolster the courage
of this detachment, the barons swore on the Gospels that if John
were to besiege Rochester they would come at once to drive him off.
When William of Albini arrived there he found the castle stripped
bare of all provisions, arms, and furniture, and his troops had noth-
ing with which to defend it except what they had brought with them.
There was a general movement to abandon the enterprise and return
to London, but their commander so exhorted and taunted the knights
with the name of deserters that they set to work with a will, stripped
the city of all its provisions and carried them into the castle, and set-
tled down to defend it.
John of course learned of all this at once. He immediately moved
his mercenaries to Rochester and laid siege to the castle on Octo-
ber 1 1 . His troops occupied the city and stabled their horses in the
Cathedral. His stone-throwers kept up an incessant rain of missiles
on the besieged garrison, and John himself took command of the
operations.
When the barons in London learned of the siege, in accordance
with their oath they set out to succor William of Albini. They
marched as far as Dartford, about fifteen miles, with a gentle south
wind blowing in their faces, and then they turned round and marched
back to London. They fortified the city well and settled back to
observe the outcome of the siege of Rochester, passing their time,
254
says Roger of Wendover, in playing with dice, drinking the best of
wines, and practicing various vices.
William of Albini meanwhile was left to bear the full brunt of
John's attacks. When the King saw that the barons were not going
to do anything to help William, he knew that it was only a matter
of time till the garrison would be forced to surrender. He accordingly
laid in a stock of wine:
THE KING, to Brother Roger the Templar: GREETINGS. Be
it known to you that we need wine. Wherefore we command
you, if you can find any wine for sale at Sandwich, to buy it for
our use and send it to Rochester at our expense without delay.
MYSELF AS WITNESS, at Rochester, on the zznd day of No*
vember.
He also sent to Dover for die nine casks of wine that remained
out of his stock there.
His stone'throwers and crossbowmen worked day and night. The
besieged garrison fought back with grim desperation and inflicted
many losses on the royal army. They had not many provisions to be"
gin with, and they were soon reduced to eating their horses.
One day John and Savaric de Mauleon, his Poitevin captain of
mercenaries, were riding round the walls of the castle and looking
for weak spots where the stone'throwers might be aimed. A cross-
bowman on the walls saw them and pointed them out to William
of Albini.
"My lord, would you like me to kill our bloody enemy the King
with this arrow that I have ready?" he asked the Lord of Belvoir.
"No, man/' he replied; "far be it from us to cause the death of
the Lord's anointed/ 5
"But he would not spare you in a like case/ 3 the soldier argued,
-I2i6] "To Qod and St. Wulfstan" 255
but William persisted in his chivalric regard for tie person of his
King.
The stone'throwers could do little damage to the sturdy outer
walls of the castle. At last John had the walls mined. He fired the
supporting timbers with forty fat sides of bacon, and most of the
outer walls collapsed. The starving garrison then took refuge in
the tower and inflicted such damage on the King's soldiers that they
drove them off time after time. Miners next set to work under the
walls of the tower. The garrison, meanwhile, had eaten the last of
their horses and were faced with starvation.
On St. Andrew's Day, November 30, 1215, defeated by hunger
but not by their enemies, William of Albini and his garrison sur'
rendered. They had lost only one knight, who was killed by an ar*
row, and suffered few wounds, whilst they had inflicted great damage
on their besiegers. The siege had cost John sixty thousand marks,
according to Ralph of Coggeshall.
John at once ordered all the captured knights to be hanged.
Savaric de Mauleon, who was a gentleman, as well as a poet of some
repute, protested against such barbaric behavior.
"My lord king/' he remonstrated, "our war is not yet finished,
and you should remember how the fortunes of war change. If you
have us hang these men, our enemies the barons might capture me
or some other nobles of your army and hang us, after your example.
Do not let this happen, for then no one would fight in your army."
John unwillingly followed his advice. William of Albini and
most of the other knights he sent to Corfe Castle to be kept in close
confinement; some were sent to Nottingham Castle, and die re*
mainder were distributed among various royal dungeons. He turned
the soldiers, except the crossbowmen, over to his own soldiers as
prizes to be ransomed, but the crossbowmen, who were responsible
for killing many of his own men, he ordered hanged.
Shortly after the fall of Rochester, John's ambassadors, Thomas
Hardington and Geoffrey of Crawcombe, returned from Rome and
reported on their success at the Holy See. John had obtained every-
thing he wanted from the Pope. They told him that when Stephen
Langton presented himself before Innocent, he did not attempt to
defend himself against their accusations of having favored and helped
the barons against the King, of having refused to pronounce the eccle-
siastical censures against the barons, and of rebelling against the
Pope's orders. Stephen's only reply to their charges was to beg the
Pope to free him from the sentence of suspension that lay on him.
"Brother, by St. Peter/' Innocent replied, "you will not thus eas-
ily be absolved for having inflicted so many and such injuries not
only on the King of the English but also on the Roman Church. We
will decide with the full deliberation of our brothers how we shall
punish such rash excesses/'
Innocent's verdict was that the sentence of suspension should
stand, and he wrote to all the suffragan bishops of the Province of
Canterbury, announcing that he had ratified the suspension of
Stephen Langton and ordering them to show no obedience to their
Archbishop.
The canons of York then presented Simon Langton to the Pope
as Archbishop'elect of York and begged him to confirm the election.
Innocent reminded them that he had already refused to accept Simon.
He once more declared die election null and Simon Langton hence*
forth ineligible for episcopal orders without a special dispensation
from the Holy See. He ordered the canons to proceed at once with
another election and threatened to provide them himself with a pastor
if they did not do so. The canons, who had been given authority to do
so by their chapter, then elected Walter Grey, whom they had pre-
viously refected as illiterate. This defect, they now said, was out"
weighed by his purity of life, which he had maintained from his birth
to the present day.
-12 16] "To Qod and St. Wulfrtan 9 257
When they informed the Pope of their new choice and their rea-
sons for it, Innocent said: "By St. Peter, virginity is a great virtue,
and we give him to you/' and bestowed the pallium on Walter Grey.
The new Archbishop returned to England owing the Papal Curia
ten thousand pounds for his election.
John now divided his forces, so that he might keep the barons bot-
tled up in London and at the same time defend the North against the
incursions of the Scots. He appointed William Longsword, Falkes
de Breaute, Savaric de Mauleon, William Brewer, and Walter Buck
commanders of the southern detachments, whilst he himself proposed
to lead the expedition into the North.
The southern forces at once set to work, spreading terror wher-
ever they went. The constables of Windsor, Hertford, and Berk-
hamstead were given the assignment of watching London and cut-
ting off the barons* supplies. The Thames was still open, however,
and the city was amply provisioned by water. William Longsword
and Falkes de Breaute overran Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex,
Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire. They ravaged those counties
thoroughly, taking tribute from the towns, making the inhabitants
prisoners, burning the buildings of the barons, cutting down orchards,
spreading fire, and taking great booty as far as the suburbs of London
itself. Falkes captured Bedford Castle on December 2, while its lord,
William de Beauchamp, was in London.
John arrived at St. Albans on December 18 and ordered the
chapter to send copies to all the churches in England of the Pope's
letter suspending Stephen Langton. Then he set out for the North,
taking with him William de Fors, Earl of Aumale; John Marshal,
nephew of the Earl of Pembroke; Philip of Albini, and some of his
mercenary captains, as well as an army of foreigners, crossbowmen,
and lawless men. On his way to Northampton he laid the country
waste, burning houses and barns, driving off cattle, and robbing and
plundering. The keepers of the barons* castles fled when they heard
258
of his approach, and John put his own men in these fortresses. He
reached Northampton on December zi and Nottingham on Christ"
mas Eve. He spent Christmas at Nottingham and then went to
Langer, where William of Albini had a castle that he had entrusted
to his son Nicholas, who was a clerk, and a body of knights.
John sent a messenger to tell Nicholas that if he did not surrender
the castle at once his father, who was then confined in Corfe Castle,
would never eat again. Nicholas knew that this was no idle threat,
and he immediately surrendered. John turned the castle over to two
of his Poitevin mercenaries and continued northward.
He reached York on January 5, Durham on the 8th, and Berwick
on the 1 4th. He stayed in Berwick, the northernmost point of his
expedition, a week, reducing the castle there. He set fire to the town
with his own hands when he withdrew, exclaiming: "We will drive
the little red fox (Alexander) from his lair/ 5
John's forces spread terrible devastation wherever they went. Part
of their ravages were no doubt committed through wanton cruelty,
but much of their plundering was due to the fact that John's treasury
was low, and instead of paying his mercenaries he allowed them to
take whatever spoils they could find. The soldiers plundered houses
and churches alike and tortured their victims to extract money from
them. The campaign into the North was so successful that only two
castles remained in the hands of the barons. John put his own men
in command of all the castles, with garrisons of foreign soldiers to
keep the countryside subdued, and he ordered them to complete the
work that he had begun of destroying all the property of the rebel
barons. He spent February in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, capturing
the castles of the barons, placing them and his own castles in the
custody of loyal men, and making sure that they were in a good state
of defence, so that "the little red fox" might not be able to come
South and join the rebels.
Whilst John was thus occupied in the North, part of his Southern
-I2r67 "To Qod and St. Wulfstan 9 259
forces kept up the blockade of London by land and others invaded
the Isle of Ely. Falkes de Breaute, to whom John had entrusted the
castles of Oxford, Northampton, Bedford, and Cambridge; William
Longsword, and Savaric de Mauleon, with their armies, laid waste
the whole district. They plundered the Cathedral and threatened to
burn it, but the Prior paid them nine marks and saved it. They cap*
tured fifteen knights and held them for ransom.
In January izi6, letters arrived from the Pope, excommunicat-
ing by name the leading barons of the rebellion and laying the city
of London, their stronghold, under interdict. The sentence was pub"
lished and observed throughout die kingdom, except in London.
The barons and the citizens of London persuaded themselves that the
letters had been obtained from the Pope by misrepresentation, and
they advanced the theory, once favored by the King, that the Pope
had no jurisdiction over lay affairs. They did not consider themselves
bound to observe either the sentence of excommunication or that of
interdict but celebrated the divine services throughout the city, ring-
ing the bells in defiance and singing with loud belligerent voices.
While John was reducing the North and his captains were keep-
ing London under observation and harrying all the region around it,
the barons stayed in the city "like pregnant women/ 3 as Roger of
Wendover remarks, thinking only of food and drink. Thus they
slept, but the King did not sleep; he made himself master of all their
lands and possessions and of every castle and town in the country,
save only London. Part of the barons' inactivity may have been due
to sheer funk, which increased from day to day as they learned the
calibre of the forces John was employing. No doubt the barons and
their retainers were not sufficient in number to defeat John and his
large foreign armies. Principally, however, their indecisiveness
through this winter arose from their lack of leadership. William of
Albini seems to have been their most capable leader, and he, through
their cowardice and incompetence, was now a prisoner in Corfe Gas"
z6o
tle. Although he was no military genius, John had had far more ex*
perience in war than any of the barons who were attempting to op"
pose him. William Marshal and William Longsword were the most
experienced and capable military leaders in England, and they were
both on the King's side. In addition to these men, John had the serv
ices of a group of mercenary captains, men like Savaric de Mauleon
and Falkes de Breaute, who had spent most of their lives fighting and
who lived only for the pleasure of war. The English baronage had
grown soft, while John had grown harder and more experienced with
every year.
The barons, unwilling and unable to fight for their own cause, de*
scended to the depths of treachery. They sent Saer de Quincy, Earl
of Winchester, and Robert FitzWalter, two men who had previously
distinguished themselves for treachery and cowardice, to France to
offer the crown of England to Louis, Philip's son, a young prig of
twenty-eight. His pretensions to the English throne were given a
shadow of legality by his having married, in 1200, Blanche of Cas-
tile, a granddaughter of Henry II. The shadow was but a faint one,
for even if one set aside John, as the barons were trying to do, there
still remained the two living sons of Matilda, Henry's eldest daughter,
and Blanche's brother Henry, all of whom had a better claim to the
throne, assuming it to be vacant, than did the husband of one of the
granddaughters of Henry II.
The barons, however, were not interested in the finer points of
hereditary succession. They were determined to get rid of John, and
they knew that Philip was the only foreign prince able and willing
to help them and that without his help they could not succeed. They
therefore seized on Louis's being married to Blanche as a lucky acci*
dent that might give some justification to their doings. If they got rid
of John they would have to find another king to take his place, for a
monarchy was the only form of government they could imagine.
Louis would do a$ well as anyone else, although he was not a figure to
-i2i<57 "To Qod and St. Wulfstan" 2 6 i
arouse popular enthusiasm, being cold-blooded, studious, cautious,
and colorless.
The proposition that these two messengers laid before Philip
sounded immensely attractive to him and represented the culmina-
tion of his life's ambition; to see his son seated on the throne of Eng-
land would be a fitting climax to a lifetime of enmity towards the
King of England. Philip, however, had had dealings with English
traitors, and with these two in particular, before, and he declined to
commit himself till he had some guarantee that the barons would not
betray him in turn. He accordingly demanded that they send over
twenty-four of their most eminent men as hostages of their good faith.
The barons had no choice but to comply, and their hostages were
kept at Compiegne while Louis began his preparations for invading
England.
To assemble and equip the forces necessary for such an expedition
was a big undertaking and would require a long time. To keep up
the spirits of the barons and also to report on their trustworthiness,
Louis sent an advance party to London. Although John controlled all
the land approaches to the city, the Thames was still open, and the
Frenchmen sailed up it and landed in London on February 27,
rzi6. The barons gave them an enthusiastic welcome and, shortly
after their arrival, organized a tournament in their honor. The par-
ticipants wore armor of padded cloth and carried only their lances, as
was usual in a tournament. Towards the end of the day's sport a
Frenchman accidentally inflicted a mortal wound on Geoffrey de
Mandeville, Earl of Essex, who died within a few days.
While Louis was making his preparations in France, John re-
turned from the North at the beginning of March and joined Falkes
de Breaute in Bedford. They marched through Cambridge, Bury St.
Edmunds, and Framlingham with their forces and arrived before
Colchester Castle, which was still held by the rebel barons, on
March 14. After a short siege the garrison surrendered on the 25th,
and three days later John captured the castle of Robert de Vere, Earl
of Oxford, at Hedingham.
John's control of the Eastern Counties was now complete. He
spent April in making a wide swing around London, visiting the cas-
ties that formed a ring about the city and making sure that they were
well stocked with troops and provisions and ready to withstand at-
tack. He visited Hertford, Enfield, Berkhamstead, Windsor, Read"
ing, Franham, Guildford, and Rochester and arrived at Dover on
April 26.
Louis meanwhile wrote to the barons in London, thanking them
for having conducted themselves in a strenuous and manly way, urg-
ing them to be equally strong and strenuous in the future, and prom-
ising that by Easter Sunday he would have his forces assembled at
Calais and ready to cross over to England.
On Easter Sunday, April 10, the Abbot of Abingdon, to whom
the Pope had entrusted the task of pronouncing the sentence of ex-
communication upon the rebellious barons, renewed the sentence, in-
cluding in it the French troops which had arrived in London, and
caused it to be read in all the conventual churches in England. The
barons and the citizens of London ignored this sentence, as they had
the previous ones.
News of Louis's designs on England reached Innocent quickly,
and he sent the Legate Gualo to France to forbid him to invade Eng-
land or to harm John in any way, since England was a fief of the
Holy See and John was under the Pope's especial protection, both
as his vassal and as a crusader. Gualo appeared before Philip at Ly-
ons a fortnight after Easter and delivered his message. Philip replied
that John had never been the true King of England in the first place,
because he had been convicted of treachery by his brother Richard,
and therefore he could not give his kingdom to the Pope. Even if he
had been the true King, however, he had forfeited his kingdom by
-I2i6j 'To Qod and St. Widfaan* 263
the murder of his nephew Arthur, for which he had been condemned
in Philip's court. Finally, argued the wily Philip, even if John had
been the true King up to the moment of his surrendering his crown
to the Pope's legate, he had no right to give away the kingdom with'
out the consent of his barons. To this point the nobles of Philip's
court gave noisy assent.
Therefore, Philip concluded triumphantly, no matter how one
looked at it, the Pope had no claims to dominion over England. This
affair did not concern the Pope, and it likewise did not concern him,
Philip added, since he had no designs on the country.
The conference was continued on the following day, and Louis
appeared, at his father's request. Gualo begged Louis not to invade
or occupy England, the patrimony of the Roman Church, and he
begged Philip not to permit his son to go on such an expedition,
Philip asserted that he had always been devoted and faithful to
the Pope and the Roman Church, but that Louis should be allowed
to state his reasons for his claims to England. Louis then advanced
the arguments that John had been convicted in Philip's court of the
murder of Arthur, that he had been deposed by his own barons, and
that he had given his kingdom to the Pope without the consent of the
barons. Furthermore, although John could not resign his crown to
the Pope, he could resign it without specifying to whom it should go
after it had passed out of his hands, and that he did when he surren*
dered it to Pandulf at Dover on Ascension Eve, 1213. The throne
being thus vacant, the barons had offered it to Louis by reason of his
wife Blanche, whose mother was the only one of John's brothers and
sisters then living.
This was all legalistic nonsense, with little or no basis in fact, and
Gualo paid scant attention to it. He forbade Louis under pain of ex"
communication to enter England and his father to allow him to go.
Louis appealed to Philip not to hinder him in securing his rights and
264
declared that if necessary he would fight to the death to defend his
wife's inheritance. With this act of defiance, Louis withdrew from
the conference, and Gualo asked for a safe-conduct to the coast.
On the next day, the Feast of St. Mark, April 25, Louis came to
his father at Melun and begged him not to obstruct his proposed ex-
pedition. He said that he had sworn to help the English barons and
that he would rather be excommunicated by the Pope for a time than
to break his oath to his English friends. This decision no doubt
warmed Philip's heart, and he gave his permission and his blessing.
Louis sent messengers to Rome to lay his side of the case before the
Pope and went on with his preparations.
Louis's messengers appeared in Rome around the middle of May.
Innocent was one of the greatest lawyers of the time, and he made
short work of the arguments they advanced. To their charge that
John had murdered Arthur, he replied: "When Arthur was captured
at Mirebeau, not as an innocent man but as a guilty man and as a
traitor to his lord and uncle, to whom he had done homage and
sworn allegiance, he could by law be condemned to even the vilest
death without a trial/*
While Louis was assembling and fitting his forces at Calais, John
was on his guard at the Cinque Ports. He deployed his army along
the coast and spent the first three weeks of May in watchful waiting.
Most of his naval preparations came to naught, however, when a
storm arose and wrecked the greater part of his fleet. In the face of a
strong wind from the northeast, Louis and his forces embarked aboard
six hundred and eighty vessels and landed near Sandwich on May 2 1 .
Simon Langton sailed in the same ship with Louis and served as his
chaplain.
The French were in such numbers that John was forced to with-
draw. He had posted garrisons in the North, in East Anglia, and in
the ring of castles about London, and with his forces thus dispersed
and his fleet destroyed he did not have enough men to oppose Louis's
-12 1 6] "To Qod and St. Wulfstan" 265
army. He left Hubert de Burgh in command of Dover Castle and
retreated to Winchester. He arrived there on May 28 and at once
raised the Dragon Standard.
Louis occupied the whole of Kent, except Dover Castle, and went
on to London. There the barons and citizens welcomed him and did
homage and swore fealty to him as their King. The monks of West-
minster, however, refused to receive him, and he sent his soldiers to
break open the doors of the King's treasury and carry off everything
in it. Louis swore that he would establish good laws and restore their
rightful inheritances to the barons. He appointed Simon Langton as
his Chancellor and wrote to all the barons who had remained faithful
to John, demanding that they come and do homage to him or else
leave the kingdom.
With his forces augmented by some of the barons and their follow"
ers, Louis set out in pursuit of John. When Louis laid siege to Win"
Chester, John set fire to the city in four places and retreated to Lud"
gershall and Devizes and then south to Wilton. Louis seemed to have
gained the upper hand, and some of the barons who had hitherto re"
mained faithful to John deserted to the French. William Longsword,
the Earls of Warenne and of Arundel, and the younger William
Marshal joined with Louis. Hugh Neville came to him, surrendered
the castle of Marlborough, and did homage to him.
On June 8, at Devizes, John found time to write to Berengaria,
Richard's widow, concerning the semi-annual payment that was due
her on Ascension Day. Berengaria had had a most difficult task in
getting a settlement of her widow's dower from John. As was his
custom, he was lavish with promises but laggard with payments. In
1 20 1 he agreed to pay her a thousand marks a year, but he failed to
live up to the agreement. In March 1206 he issued a safe-conduct
for her to come to England and return, no doubt for the purpose of
discussing the settlement.
Berengaria at last lost patience with him, and in September 1 207
z66 [1215-
she appealed to the Pope. Innocent, as the protector of widows and
orphans, wrote a sharp letter to John. John, he said, would give Ber-
engaria no satisfaction for her lawful claims, and none of her people
dared even to cross over to England to discuss the dower with him.
He ordered John to send proctors to him to arrive at a settlement of
her claims.
John of course paid no attention to Innocent's letter, and the Pope
wrote him again, in February 1209. He listed Berengaria's griev-
ances and complained of John's failure to answer them. Then he
enumerated the lands in England that belonged to Berengaria by the
terms of her marriage settlement and ordered John to settle with her
concerning the income from those lands. This letter, too, John ig-
nored.
John was induced at least to treat with her after his reconciliation
with the Church, for in November 1 2 14 he wrote her that her mes-
sengers, who were returning to her, would tell her what terms had
been agreed upon. Whatever these terms were, he evidently did not
keep them.
In September 1215, over sixteen years after Richard's death, John
wrote to the Pope to inform him that he had reached an agreement
with his sister-in-law. Berengaria, styling herself "once the humble
Queen of England/* at the same time wrote an open letter to inter"
ested parties to inform them that she and John had renewed their
agreement. The King had paid her two thousand marks in settlement
of the arrears, and he agreed to pay her a thousand pounds a year, in
two installments, at All Saints* and on Ascension Day.
John probably made the payment on All Saints' Day, but when
the next payment was due, on Ascension Day, 1 2 1 6, he was in con-
siderable difficulty, as he explained to her.
THE KING, to his beloved sister Berengaria, once Queen of
England, GREETINGS and the sympathy of sincere love.
-jar 67 "To Gd and St. Wulfstan 9 267
Since, at the instigation of the enemy of the human race and
by the efforts of our Barons, whom that same enemy has stirred
up against us, our Kingdom of England has been and is dis<
turbed, and now more than ever, with the coming of Louis, the
eldest son of the King of France (who, fearing to offend neither
Qod nor the Church, is trying to take our kingdom away from
us\we have already spent the greatest part of the money which
we had ordered to be spent in wresting the Holy Land from the
hands of the enemy, and every day we are obliged to spend more
and more.
We earnestly beg your affection, in which we have full faith,
requesting you, at this time when we are undergoing such adver-
sities, patiently to accept the delay at present of the payment of
the money which we owe to you, until such time as, through
Him Who moves the soul as He wills, the dark cloud is cleared
away from us and our kingdom rejoices in full tranquillity, and
we, with the greatest thanks, will make you full account of the
money we owe you.
Louis, meanwhile, turned northeast from Winchester to Odiham
and laid siege to the castle there, which was occupied by three
knights and ten soldiers. This gallant little band kept the French at
bay, and on the third day of the siege they sallied forth, captured thir-
teen of their enemies, and regained their tower unscathed. They sur*
rendered after a week, and the French were greatly amazed when
they discovered that the garrison that had put up so heroic a defence
consisted of only thirteen men.
On St. John's Day, June 24, Louis laid siege to Dover Castle. It
was held by Hubert de Burgh with a force of a hundred and forty
knights and a strong contingent of soldiers, and it was provisioned for
a long siege. Louis sent over to France for an especially effective
stone'throwing machine known as "La Malvoisine" and set to work
268
battering the walls of the fortress. Hubert de Burgh and his men re-
plied with such vigor that the French retired to a respectful distance
from the walls. Louis was enraged by this stouthearted resistance and
swore that he would stay there till he had captured the castle and
hanged its defenders. The French settled down for a protracted siege
in the hope of starving the garrison into surrender, as John had done
at Rochester.
Whilst John remained in the Southwest, around Corfe Castle, the
baronial forces at last emerged from London and invaded East An*
glia. Under Louis's leadership they recaptured Colchester, occupied
Norwich, and reduced King's Lynn, The Northern barons picked
up courage and occupied York and Lincoln, and Alexander crossed
the border and invaded Northumberland.
The barons made frequent raids out of London into East Anglia.
They captured the castle at Cambridge and ravaged Yarmouth, Dun"
wich, and Ipswich. Then they laid siege to Windsor Castle, where
John had placed Ingelard d'Athie in command of a force of sixty
knights and their retainers. Windsor promised to be as tough a nut
to crack as Dover was turning out to be.
Meanwhile John spent a month, from mid-July to mid" August,
in subduing the Welsh border, where trouble was brewing. He
marched from Bristol through Gloucester, Tewkesbury, and Here-
ford to Shrewsbury. He left Shrewsbury on August 14 and pro-
ceeded by way of Bridgenorth to Worcester, where he subdued die
city and laid a heavy fine on it.
His next objective appears to have been the reconquest of East
Anglia. He went through Burford and Oxford to Wallingford and
Reading and thence to Bedford, where Falkes de Breaute had made
his headquarters. On his way, he addressed a letter to some of his
barons who had sickened of their bargain with Louis and had agreed
to return to their fealty to the King.
-12 16] 'To Qod and St. Wulfstan* 26 g
THE KING, to all those of the Counties of Sussex, Kent, Sur-
rey, and Southampton, who have sworn together and united in
his fealty and service, GREETINGS.
We are very grateful to you because you have come together
in our fealty and service and have turned away from your former
doings; and we beseech you steadfastly to persevere in our serv
ice and fealty and faithfully to stay with us, paying no heed to the
oath which you, albeit unwilling, swore to Louis, the son of the
King of France: for, on the occasion of that oath, we conceived
no bitterness of soul or anger against you, and, if we did conceive
such a feeling, we dismiss it entirely.
Since the time has not come when you can give us any help,
we order you to be ready and prepared to come to us at our com-
mand when we shall order you to do so, being certain that we
shall receive you with such benefits and such rewards, and that
we shall so observe your former liberties and, having observed
them, increase them, that you will be forever grateful to us, and
that, seeing the rewards we shall give you and the increase of
your liberties, the rest will the more strongly and gladly return
to our service.
MYSELF AS WITNESS, at Oxford, September 3.
Those, moreover, who enjoy no liberty, we shall so enrich
with liberties and honors that they will be forever grateful to us.
John recaptured Cambridge from the barons on September 17
and proceeded to the important castles of Hedingham and Clare. The
baronial forces remained in London, contenting themselves with oc-
casional forays to the north of the city, while the main effort of their
party was directed against the castles of Dover and of Windsor,
which stood firm against their attacks.
John then turned his attention to Lincolnshire, where a few indi-
270
vidual barons and thek retainers had succeeded in occupying some of
his castles. Gilbert de Gant and his forces, who were laying siege to
Lincoln Castle, fled when they learned that John was approaching.
The King went to Grimsby and then south through Boston and
Spalding to King's Lynn, where he arrived on October 9. He was
greeted with great enthusiasm by the citizens, who had felt the heavy
hands of the barons and welcomed their deliverance by their King.
The barons in the meantime were beginning to realize the hope-
lessness of the predicament into which they had got themselves. John
was far from being defeated. Since the surrender of Winchester, the
last really serious blow that Louis had been able to inflict on him,
Johns position had grown stronger instead of weaker. He had sub-
dued the Welsh border in a sweeping campaign of a month; he had
marched across the Midlands unopposed and joined forces with his
most capable captain, Falkes de Breaute; his recapture of Cambridge
and his descent upon Hedingham and Clare showed that he could
regain the whole of East Anglia any time he wanted to; and his light-
ning raid through Lincolnshire gave proof that the barons 3 gains in
the North would probably melt away like the besiegers of Lincoln
when the King moved against them. Meanwhile, his castles of Wind-
sor and Dover were resisting the efforts of Louis's best fighters and
gave no signs of surrendering.
In addition to these discouraging military reverses, the barons had
to put up with the insolence of Louis. He taunted them with their
treachery and clearly showed them that he did not trust them; he
took their lands and honors away from them and gave them to his
Frenchmen, and he surrounded himself with French counsellors and
made it clear that no Englishman had any influence with him. The
barons had asked for a French king, and now they were getting a
whole set of French rulers who took over all the affairs of the govern-
ment. The barons repented heartily of thek bargain; there was a
great deal of friction between them and the French nobles; and at
-I2r6/ "To Qod and St. Wulfstan" 271
last a number of them in disgust deserted Louis and went back to
John. They were greatly encouraged by the warm welcome he gave
them, laying aside, as he had promised, all vindictiveness.
The King left Wisbech on October 1 2, and in his haste to cross
the River Welland he refused to wait till the tide had completely sub-
sided. He forced his followers to cross the treacherous sands, and
the sands closed in on them and swallowed all his carts and baggage
horses. With them all his treasure, jewels, and personal belongings
sank out of sight beneath the mud, and he and his army narrowly
escape the fate of the baggage trains.
John went on to the Cistercian abbey at Swineshead, sick with
rage. Roger of Wendover says that he gorged himself that night with
peaches and new cider; at any rate, he was seized with dysentery and
a high fever. In great pain he left Swineshead on October 1 3 and
spent the I4th and 1 5th at Sleaford, where he was bled. Barely able
to hold himself in the saddle, he rode on to Newark on the i6th.
There he became so ill that he realized he could not recover. Ac-
cording to the biographer of William Marshal, he said to those gath-
ered about his bed:
"My lords, I must die; I cannot overcome this sickness. For the
love of God, beg the Marshal to forgive me the wrongs I have done
him and which I heartily repent. He has always served me loyally;
he has never done anything against me, no matter what I have done
or said to him. For the love of God, my lords, beg him to forgive
me! And since I am more sure of his loyalty than of any other's, I beg
you to entrust him with the charge of my son, who will never succeed
in holding this land, except through him/*
He confessed his sins to the Abbot of Croxton and received the
Last Sacraments at his hands. He made his will and designated his
eldest son, Henry, then nine years old, as his heir. He had all those
with him to swear allegiance to Henry, and he sent letters under his
seal to all the sheriffs and constables who were faithful to him, order-
ing them to receive Henry as their King. Messengers came to him
with letters from about forty of his nobles who had deserted him and
then sickened of their treachery, begging to be allowed to make their
peace with him and return to his allegiance, but he was too ill to at"
tend to them.
The Abbot of Croxton asked him where he wanted to be buried
in case his illness proved mortal, and John replied: "To God and St.
Wulfstan I commend my body and soul/* He died in the night of
Wednesday, October 19, 1216, at the age of fortyeight.
John's body was dressed in royal robes, with a tunic of cloth'of"
gold, a dalmatic of red samite bordered with jewels, and a mantle of
cloth'of'gold thrown over his right arm. In his gloved hands he held
a sceptre in his right and a naked sword in his left. He wore buskins
and sandals, with golden spurs. Over his head was drawn a monk's
cowl.
The body was borne to Worcester, where the Bishop, Sylvester
of Evesham, celebrated the Requiem Mass. John was buried before
the high altar, between the shrines of St. Oswald and St. Wulfstan,
who are shown censing him on his tomb.
There is a wealth of information about Henry II and Richard,
compared with the little there is about John. No chronicler tells us
much of John's appearance, his personal habits, or how he bore him-
self as a man. One surmises that this silence is partly due to the fact
that John was an unattractive character and did not capture the imag"
inations and, as Richard did, the hearts of the writers of the time. No
one cared enough about him to record the little details of personal
appearance, dress, manners, ways of speech, and foibles that enable
us to form a clear picture of Henry or of Richard.
John seems to have been what was, in his time, when the sea of
faith was at the full, a rare and, to the monastic chroniclers, an ut"
terly incomprehensible being: a complete skeptic or agnostic. Men
were often then as violent and tempestuous in their religion as they
-I2i6j "To Qod and St. Wulfstan* 273
were in all the other affairs of their lives. They committed great and
spectacular sins, it is true, but they expiated them by great and spec-
tacular penances. One has only to remember Henry before the tomb
of the martyred Thomas, being whipped by the monks of Canter-
bury, or Richard at Messina, clad in a loin-clout, kneeling before his
bishops with three scourges in his hand to confess his evil way of life,
to realize how foreign such a frame of mind was to John.
He was not even a heretic; he simply cared nothing whatever
about religion. If he had had any heretical opinions, the interdict and
the teachings of Master Alexander the Mason would have furnished
a perfect opportunity to effect the breach with Rome and antici-
pate, with much less bloodshed and social upheaval, the work of
Henry VIII. No one, however, would have laughed more heartily
than John at the thought of his setting himself up as "Supreme Head
on earth of the Church of England."
This utter indifference must have baffled the monks who were
writing the chronicles of their times, and they were repelled by a man
who showed no remorse for his sins and never gave an inkling of any
desire to mend his ways or to seek godly counsel from priests or spir-
itual strength from the Sacraments they administered. They re-
corded his doings, from a safe distance, but they confined themselves
to a bare account of his reign and said as little as possible about the
character of a man who was an enigma to them and has remained an
enigma to succeeding generations.
John inevitably suffers by comparison with his father and his
brother Richard. Henry II was one of the greatest kings in English
history, and Richard's many faults as a king (if indeed he may be
said to have ruled in England at all, so little time did he spend there
and so little attention did he give to English affairs) were quite ob-
scured by his dazzling reputation as a warrior and as the pattern of
chivalry. There was nothing dazzling about John.
He had the violent temper of his father and brother, without the
274
corresponding bursts of joviality and good nature which made men
forget the royal rages. He had his father's interest in the procedures
and administration of the law, and he spent a great deal of time in
hearing suits in his courts, but he did not have the legal genius that
made Henry one of the greatest figures in the history of English law.
He had his father's lecherous disposition without any of the romantic
tenderness that glows in the story of the Fair Rosamund. What in
Richard was a love of all things beautiful degenerated in John into a
mere gluttony for good wines and rich food and fine clothes. In con*
trast to his father, he was neat about his person, and he bathed every
fortnight, on an average. He was much involved in military expedi-
tions, but he was without that gift for strategy and leadership that
made Richard the greatest soldier of his age. He, like his father, was
embroiled with the Church, but he had neither the overwhelming
repentance of his father nor Richard's touching regularity of devotion
and profound love for the music and liturgy of the Church. He had
little of his father's skill as an administrator; if England was well gov-
erned during the earlier part of his reign, it was because of Geofirey
FitzPeter and Hubert Walter and a whole school of administrators
trained by Henry or brought up in the tradition founded by him,
John was, nevertheless, an energetic, hard-working, and industri-
ous King. In his restless journeys over the length and breadth of
England, when he rode as much as thirty miles a day and seldom
stayed in one place for more than three or four days, he made his
presence felt throughout the whole of his kingdom, and no other
ruler has ever known England as thoroughly as he did. For the last
ten years of his life he concentrated almost all of his formidable en-
ergies upon his kingdom of England, and it may well be that the
root of his troubles with the barons lay in their objections to being
ruled by a king who stayed in England and supervised every detail
of the government, accustomed as they were to kings like Henry, who
-12 16] "To Qod and St. Wulfstan" 275
spent less than half his time in England, and Richard, who was in
England less than six months during a reign of ten years.
A faithless husband, a bungling military strategist, a cruel, oppres-
sive, and treacherous lord, and a godless man: John was all of these,
yet we in these present days have seen such depths of human deprav-
ity that we cannot consider him as the unrelieved villain that he once
appeared to be. It is faint praise to say that he was not so bad as he
might have been, yet when we consider what men with absolute
power have done in later days we are forced almost to admire John's
restraint. One has only to compare him with the Tudor tyrants to
realize how little he did to deserve his evil reputation. He tried to
transmit to his heirs the prerogatives and authority of a King of Eng-
land, unimpaired by the encroachments of Pope and barons. That
was his conception of his duty, and to the best of his ability he did it.
"It is to be hoped/* says Matthew Paris, "that some good works
that he did in this life may plead for him before die tribunal of Jesus
Christ, for he founded a monastery of the Cistercian order at Beau-
lieu, and on his deathbed he gave the monastery of Croxton land
worth ten pounds/'
APPENDIX
THE GREAT CHARTER
| N THIS appendix, which is based largely on Dr. Me-
I Kechnie's Magna Carta, it is proposed to discuss the provisions
L of the Great Charter in the light they throw on the conditions of
the time and on the manner in which John governed England.
From the time of the Conquest, England was a feudal society;
that is, it was a society based on land tenure, together with the obliga-
tions arising therefrom. (It should be emphasized that what follows
is a drastic simplification of an extremely complex subject. Every
statement should be understood as being qualified by "generally
speaking" or "on the whole" or "in many cases/* and for every gen-
eral statement a number of instances directly contrary to it can be
quoted. This is not to be wondered at, for even the people living in
die midst of what we now call a feudal society did not understand all
its ramifications. The King's Court in a number of instances, for ex-
ample, confessed frankly that it could not decide whether a certain
fief was held by knight-service, by sergeancy, or in frankalmoign.)
This society was based on the premise that the king owned all the
land of England. William the Bastard apportioned it out among the
Crown, die Church, and his followers. Roughly speaking, he re-
The Qreat Charter 277
served two-sevenths of the land for himself and his immediate house*
hold; a second two-sevenths he gave to the Church, and with the
remaining three-sevenths he rewarded the leaders among his Norman
followers. Few indeed of the native English were left in possession of
their lands.
The lands reserved to the Crown were known as the royal de-
mesne, and the income from these lands was supposed to meet all
the personal expenses of the king, to support the royal household,
and to defray the costs of the government.
The grants of land to the Church and to the king's followers were
not outright gifts. The land was still, fundamentally, the king's. The
recipient was merely a tenant, and he had possession of seisin, to use
the technical term, only under certain conditions. He had to do hom-
age and to place his hands between the king's and swear fealty to
him "in life and limb and earthly honor." He was subject to die
feudal incidents: he had to pay a relief when he took seisin of his
fee (Latin feodum, hence "feudal"); the tenant, if a minor, was a
ward of the Crown till he came of age; if the fief passed to a woman
the king had control over her marriage, and die tenant had to pay
the recognized aids when they were demanded.
Most important of all, and this is the keystone of the whole sys-
tem, he had to follow the king in battle with a specified number oi
knights, and in many cases he and his knights had to help guard the
king's castles. Fundamentally, then, the system was devised as a
means of assuring the king an adequate army when he needed it.
Although some land was held on conditions other than that of knight-
service, nevertheless the obligation to serve the king in person and
with a specified number of knights was the basic condition under
which most land was held in mediaeval England.
These tenants, in the uncertain times immediately following the
Conquest, at first maintained the specified number of knights in theii
own households. By the end of the eleventh century, however, the
278 Appendix
tenants-in-chief, as the men who held land directly of the king were
called, had hit upon the expedient of dividing some of their lands
among their knights, who then could live on their own holdings and
still be ready for military service when it was called for. These ten-
ants in turn swore the same oaths and were under the same obliga-
tions to their lords that their lords were to the king. This process of
sub'infeudation might be and often was carried still further, but the
fundamental obligation that a certain piece of land was held under
the condition of furnishing a certain number of knights still remained,
as did all the other obligations attached to that piece of land.
Normally, the land passed, under the usual conditions, to the
eldest son. In those troubled times, however, when disease, almost
constant warfare, and the added hazards of the Crusades made life
more than usually uncertain, it occasionally happened that a man
died with no heirs at all, in which case the estate returned to the
lord, or with no male heirs, in which case it was divided equally
among his daughters. This, together with sub-infeudation, led to a
further fragmentation of what had originally been estates owing the
service of a certain number of knights. Thus it is not uncommon, by
John's time, to read of land owing as little as one-sixtieth of a
knight's fee. The obvious way out of this anomalous situation was
for the tenant owing a fraction of a knight's service to make a money
settlement with his lord in lieu of the service.
All this was a complicated scheme, and it was made more compli-
cated by the fact that little of it had ever been put down in writing.
Everything depended on what was considered customary or usual,
and interpretations of what was customary varied widely. The king
was of course interested in getting as much from his barons as he
possibly could, and the barons were determined to give as little as
possible.
It is not surprising, then, that after the preliminaries of Chapter i
are out of the way, the Charter proceeds at once to those aspects of
The Qreat Charter 279
the feudal contract which had proved the sorest points of dispute be"
tween the king and his barons.
Chapter 2 establishes the amounts to be paid as reliefs by the vari-
ous classes of tenants-in-chief, or men holding their land directly of
the king, with no intermediate or mesne lord. It provides that if any
tenant'in-chief holding by military service shall die and his heir shall
be of age, the heir shall have possession of his inheritance by paying
the ancient relief, which was now declared to be a hundred pounds
for an earl or baron and a hundred shillings for a knight's fee.
Earls by this time had been pretty well shorn of any territorial
jurisdiction over the counties or regions from which they took their
titles. They still received a third of the profits of the courts of their
titular counties, but their jurisdiction, like that of any other baron,
was limited to the lands of which they had seisin. Whether by acci-
dent or by design on the part of the king, few of the great men held
their land all in one continuous holding. Their estates were split up
and scattered all over the country, so that one man rarely dominated
a whole county or group of counties, unless he were particularly fa*
vored or trusted by the king.
The term baron was an elastic one. Originally it was applied to
all tenants'in'chief of the Crown, so that any man who held his
land directly of the king was considered a baron. By John's time,
however, a loose distinction was being made between the greater and
the lesser barons. The term baron was being restricted to the greater
men, each of whom was summoned to meetings of the Great Coun-
cil by a writ addressed individually to him. The lesser men were
called knights and were summoned by a collective writ addressed to
the sheriffs of the counties. There was no rigid standard by which
it was determined whether a tenant was to be rated as a baron or as a
knight, although it is obvious that men who held a great deal of
land would be considered barons and those who held little would be
z 8 o Appendix
considered knights. In view of the distinction between the reliefs due
from baronies and those due from knights' fees, it might seem reason-
able to assume as a rough rule-of -thumb that tenants owing the serv-
ices of more than twenty knights would be classed as barons, and
those owing less as knights.
Some men who owed less than the service of twenty knights,
however, were classed as barons, and on the other hand some men
owing more than that service were not so classed. It would be to the
financial advantage of the first man not to be classed as a baron, and
to the second man to be classed as one. Consequently, many suits
were instituted to clarify the situation, and in almost every case the
final proof rested on the wording of the charter by which the man
held his land. If the charter said that the land was held as a barony,
per baroniam, then the man was rated as a baron, regardless of the
knight-service due from the estate, and he had to pay a baron's relief.
When the Conquerer distributed his newly won English lands
among his followers, he stipulated that the owner of each fief was to
furnish in return the services of a certain number of knights when
the king demanded diem. There was no rigid relationship between
the size of a fief and die number of knights it was required to provide.
From die time of the Conquest the knight's fee was the established
unit of assessment. According to this provision of the Charter, the
heir of an estate that was not rated as a barony was to pay a relief of
a hundred shillings for each knight's fee at which the estate was
assessed.
The payment of relief not only furnished a source of income to
the Crown; it also impressed on men's minds the fundamental na-
ture of the contract between the king and those who held land of
him. A man did not inherit his father's estates simply by virtue of be-
ing his father's eldest son; at a man's death his lands returned to the
king, of whom he had held them, and the heir acquired the grant of
The Qreat Charter 2 8 i
the lands only upon doing homage, swearing fealty, and paying a
sum of money.
The king, by virtue of his right of primer seisin, might occupy the
estate, and the heir would then be forced to bargain for it. In such a
case, the relief became simply the highest price the heir was pre*
pared to pay in order to gain possession of the lands his father had
held.
Through the payment of reliefs, the dependence of the barons
upon the king was kept fresh in their minds, and the possibility of
their forming the idea that they were absolute masters of their lands
with no obligations to their king was prevented.
That this chapter concerning reliefs comes thus early in the Char"
ter is a good indication that John had found them a fruitful field for
abuses and that these abuses were one of the chief grievances of
the barons. Until a fixed scale of reliefs had thus been drawn up,
there was nothing to prevent John from exacting as heavy a relief as
he thought he could get.
The modern equivalent of the relief would be the inheritance tax
or death duties. A relief was never so heavy as to amount to down*
right confiscation. John knew quite well die value of all the greater
estates in die kingdom, and there would be little point in asking more
than the tenant would be able eventually to pay. Furthermore, the
Exchequer seems to have been quite lenient in collecting the relief,
as well as most other debts to the Crown, over a period of years. So
long as the tenant made an occasional payment and seemed to be
making an effort to meet his obligations, the Exchequer officials were
apparently willing to let the debt run for twenty or thirty years, in
extreme cases. On the other hand, when debtors made no effort to
meet their obligations, they were often punished by the confiscation
of their estates.
z 8 2 Appendix
Chapter 3 provides that if the heir of a Crown tenant was under
age when his father died and hence had been under wardship till he
reached his majority, he should not have to pay a relief when he
comes of age and is given seisin of his inheritance. Men were con-
sidered to reach their majority at twentyone, and women at four-
teen.
Wardship was a natural corollary of the feudal contract. Since the
king bestowed lands upon a man in return for military service, the
bargain could not be kept if the lands passed into the hands of one
too young for effective service. During the nonage of the heir, there-
fore, the revenues of the fief reverted to the king, who was bound
only to maintain the heir according to his station in life and was free
to keep the remainder. Since the heir thus had no opportunity to ac-
cumulate money with which to pay a relief, the barons demanded
that John should not require one, which could obviously be paid
cnly by borrowing money and pledging future income from the
lands.
Chapter 4. Wardship might be a ruinous business for an heir in
the grasping hands of John, whose chief and probably sole concern
would be to make as much money from the lands as possible, without
any effort to maintain the estate in as good condition as it was when
the last tenant died. This chapter provides against such abuses of es-
tates. It stipulates that nothing but reasonable produce, customs, and
services shall be taken from the estate and its men.
The king might manage estates under his wardship in one of two
ways: he might commit them to one of his sheriffs or bailiffs, who
would manage them for him and transmit the profits to him; or he
might bestow both the management and the profits as a gift on a fa-
vorite or sell them to the highest bidder.
The Pipe Rolls abound in records of payments made to the king
"for having custody of the land and heir" of N., usually with "and of
The Qreat Charter 283
his marriage" thrown in. A few examples from the Pipe Roll of 1210
will show how common the practice was:
"Richard FitzRichard renders account of 2,000 marks for having
custody of the land and heir of William de Rupe, together with the
custody of Eva, the wife of the aforesaid William/*
"Oliver de Vallibus renders account of 100 marks and i palfrey
to have custody of the land and heir of Hubert of Munchenesey, to"
gether with his marriage/*
"And of 30 marks of the fine of William of Meisnilgarin to have
custody of the land and heir of Philip of Bodham and to have Alice
as his wife/*
"Alan Basset, 100 marks to have custody of the daughter and
heiress of Ralph of Hastings until she is of age, together with the
marriage of the aforesaid girl/*
If it was found that the estate was being wasted or destroyed, this
chapter provides that it should be committed to the care of two lawful
and discreet men of that estate, who would naturally be interested in
seeing that it was kept in good condition. If the estate had been com"
mitted to a sheriff or other royal agent, he should be fined for damag-
ing it; if the wardship had been given or sold to anyone, he should
lose it, and the profits should go to the king.
Chapter 5 lays an obligation on the custodian of the estate to keep
up the buildings, parks, ponds, mills, and the like out of the proceeds
of the lands and to turn over to the heir when he comes of age all his
lands with the instruments of tillage and the standing crops according
to the season.
Chapter 6. If an heiress were under the king's wardship, he might
marry her to whomever he would. This arose from a sound precau*
tion whereby the king might make sure that the heiress did not marry
anyone obnoxious to him, who would by such a marriage become
z 8 4 Appendix
one of his tenants and followers in time of war. Rich heiresses were
valuable prizes, and there is plenty of evidence that John married
off his female wards to the highest bidder. Marriage was normally a
business arrangement and was rarely left to the free choice of the
people concerned. The barons had no intention of giving a girl of
fourteen liberty to bestow herself and her lands on whomever she
pleased.
This chapter confirms the king's right to arrange marriages for his
wards, but, in view of his practice of rewarding his foreign favorites
with English heiresses, with the limitation that the marriage must be
without disparagement; that is, that the man so chosen must be of
the same station in life as the heiress. As a further safeguard, it re-
quires that the nearest relations of the heiress shall be notified in ad-
vance of the marriage, although it is not likely that their protests
would count for much with John. This chapter applies to the mar"
riage of both male and female wards, although it obviously would
more often apply to the latter. However, it occasionally happened
that the king would, for a price, give a rich young heir to an ambi-
tious father as a husband for his daughter.
Chapter 7. In addition to wards under age, another class of peo-
ple unable to defend themselves were apt to fall into the king's
power. Widows of Crown tenants were peculiarly at the mercy of the
king, and apparently John, in his eagerness to profit from his ward-
ship over the lands, paid scant attention to the rights of the widow.
This chapter provides that the widow shall immediately, without dif-
ficulty and without the need for any payment, have her marriage
portion and her inheritance. It further provides that she may remain
in her husband's house for forty days after his death and that her
dower is to be assigned to her within that time. The marriage portion
was the land that had been bestowed upon her by her father at the
time of her marriage. The husband thus became the tenant of his
The Qreat Charter z 8 5
father-hi'law, but at his death the land reverted to his widow. Her
inheritance would be any lands that she might have inherited from
any of her relations. Her dower was the widow's share of one-third
of her husband's lands, to be enjoyed by her for the remainder of her
life. Thus this chapter guarantees to the widow all the lands to which
she is entitled and, moreover, provides that she be given possession
of them within forty days.
Chapter S, as a further protection, provides that no widow shall be
forced to marry when she wants to live without a husband. As a safe-
guard against her marrying one of the king's enemies, however, she
has to give security that she will not marry without the king's con*
sent, if she holds land of him, or that of the mesne lord of whom she
holds land.
John had been in the habit, apparently, of selling the widow and
her lands to the highest bidder, unless the widow could bid even
higher for the privilege of not being compelled to marry. Thus, from
the Pipe Roll of i z i o :
"Matilda Luuel renders account of 4 score and 8 pounds and half
a mark, in order that she may not be compelled to marry."
"Matilda of Muschans renders account of zoo marks in order that
she may not be compelled to marry."
"Robert of Burgate renders account of 700 marks to have as his
wife Galiena, who was the wife of John Briewerre, together with her
inheritance and dower/ 3
And, from the Pipe Roll of i z i z :
"Hadwisa, Countess of Albemarle, renders account of 5,000
marks for having her inheritance and her dowers and in order that
she may not be compelled to marry."
(This extraordinary lady, whom Richard of Devizes describes as
"a woman who was almost a man, lacking nothing virile except the
virile organs," was the daughter and heiress of William le Gros, Earl
2 8 6 Appendix
of Albemarle, who died in 1 179. She was married first to William
de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, in 1180. When he died in 1189,
Richard awarded her and her vast estates to William de Fors, a mil-
itary adventurer after his own heart. By him she had a son, also
called William, William de Fors died in 1195, and Hadwisa was
next married to Baldwin de Bethune. After he died, it is quite un-
derstandable that Hadwisa had had enough of marriage and was
willing to offer the king such an enormous sum for the privilege of
avoiding yet another marriage.)
Chapter 9 treats of the procedure to be followed by the Crown in
collecting debts from its subjects. In the first place, neither the king
nor his bailiffs are to seize a debtor's land or rents when his chattels
are sufficient to pay the debt; this is an attempt to preserve a man's
means of livelihood whenever possible. Next, a debtor's sureties
should not be forced to pay the debt as long as the debtor himself is
able to pay it. Finally, if the debtor cannot pay the debt and his
sureties have to pay it, they shall have possession of the lands and
rents of the debtor till they have had satisfaction for the debt. These
provisions are so reasonable that their inclusion would suggest that
John had been in the habit of confiscating whole estates in settlement
of debts much less than the value of the estates.
Chapter 10. The charging of any interest, however small, was
considered usury at this time and was forbidden by the Church. The
only time anyone would want to borrow money would be when he
was in distress, and the Church forbade a Christian to make a finan-
cial profit from his neighbor's misfortune. Hence only Jews served
as money lenders, and the precarious nature of their occupation and
their monopoly of the trade led them to exact high rates of interest.
The normal rate was between fifty and seventy-five per cent a year.
The Qreat Charter 2,87
If a man died owing money to the Jews and his heir had a long
minority, during which of course the income from his inheritance was
enjoyed by his guardian and the interest on the debt continued to
pile up at a dizzying rate, the whole estate might be swallowed up
in paying off the debt and the accumulated interest when the heir fi'
nally took seisin. To guard against this, Chapter 10 provides that a
debt should not bear interest while the heir is under age and that if
the debt falls into the hands of the king he cannot take anything ex"
cept the principal of the debt.
This provision was inserted into a compact between the king and
his barons and it was extended to all heirs, regardless of whether
they held their land of the king or of an intermediate lord, because
the Jews and particularly their money affairs were under the direct
supervision of the Crown. Furthermore, the money affairs of the Jews
frequently became the money affairs of the Crown. John extorted as
much money as he could from them, and it was an established custom
for the Crown to inherit a third of the estates of deceased Jews. Thus
die king might often come into possession of the bonds of which most
of the wealth of the Jews consisted. To guard against the possibility
that John might attempt to extort the interest on the bonds that had
been forbidden to the Jews, this chapter contains the provision that he
will require only the principal sum.
Chapter n. The previous chapter thus forbids the accumulation
of interest during the heir's minority; it does not protect die estate it"
self from being seized to repay the principal of the debt. This chap-
ter repairs that omission by providing: first, that the widow shall have
her entire dower and shall not have to pay any of die debt, which
removes a third of the security from the possibility of being seized;
second, that minor children shall be provided with the necessities of
life in accordance with their station; and, third, that the services due
z 8 8 Appendix
to the feudal lord shall be paid. Only after all these claims on the
estate have been satisfied may the remainder be used to pay the debt,
Chapter 12. One of the chief grievances of the barons was the
king's habit of exacting, arbitrarily, scutages and aids heavier than
any they had previously known. Each tenant-in'chief by military
service held his lands of the king in return for the obligation to serve
him in time of war at the head of a stipulated number of knights.
As early as the time of Henry I, the king occasionally found it more
convenient to hire mercenary soldiers than to depend on his tenants.
They were accordingly allowed to pay the money wherewith to hire
the mercenaries rather than to furnish personal service.
This commutation, known as scutage, "shield-money," was lev-
ied at a uniform rate for each knight's fee; that is to say, if a baron
owed the services of forty knights and the scutage was levied at the
rate of twenty shillings on the knight's fee, as it was for the scutage
of 1210 1 1, he would be assessed forty pounds. The king did not
offer his barons the choice of personal service or the payment of
scutage. If he demanded personal service, they had either to furnish
it or to purchase exemption by a heavy fine. If they did neither the
one nor the other, they were liable to forfeiture of their lands and
could at the least be certain of a heavy amercement.
John relied largely upon scutages to pay for his wars on the Con-
tinent and in Scotland and Wales. He levied them more frequently
and at a stiffer rate than had either his father or his brother. Henry II
levied seven scutages in thirty-five years, and only one of them was
at a rate greater than twenty shillings on a knight's fee. Richard, in
spite of the great expenses of the Crusade and of his protracted war-
fare with Philip, collected only four scutages in ten years, and never
at a rate greater than twenty shillings. John, however, asked for
eleven, and possibly twelve scutages in fifteen years, all but two in
excess of twenty shillings, and he would probably have demanded
TTze Qreat Charter 289
more if the confiscation of the revenues of the clergy during the inter'
diet had not for the time being furnished him with ample funds. Both
the frequency and the rate of John's scutages drove the barons to
protest. The last scutage, that of 1 2 1 3-1 4, at the rate of three marks,
the majority of them refused to pay.
Aids were contributions demanded by the king when circum-
stances out of the ordinary arose. By custom they were limited to
three occasions: when the king's eldest son was knighted; when his
eldest daughter was married for the first time; and when the king was
captured by his enemies and had to be ransomed. John seems, how-
ever, to have levied an aid whenever that appeared to him to be the
easiest way of raising money.
This chapter provides that no scutage or aid may be imposed with-
out the consent of the Common Council of the kingdom, except for
the three recognized aids, which may be levied without the consent
of the Council but at not more than a reasonable rate. This was in-
deed an innovation; if the Council could give its consent to the im-
position of a scutage or an aid, it could also presumably refuse it.
This was no mere attempt to restore the good laws and customs of
the past; it was an effort to impose on the king a restraint the royal
power had never known before and to alter the fundamental nature
of the feudal contract, for it implied that the Common Council,
rather than the king, should be the judge as to when the king might
call on his barons for the knight-service, or the scutage representing
such service, by which they held their lands.
As a sop to the citizens of London, whose support had greatly
strengthened the barons, it was provided that aids from the City of
London should be levied in the same way. This would afford scant
protection to the city, for the Common Council, made up of the bar-
ons, would have little reason to moderate the king's demands upon
the citizens.
2 9 o Appendix
Chapter 13 makes fuller though vague concessions to London by
affirming that the city shall have all its ancient liberties and free cus-
toms, both by land and by water, and grants their liberties and free
customs to all cities, boroughs, towns, and ports. This chapter merely
confirms such customary rights as they already had; it does not con-
fer any new ones.
Chapter 14 explains the method to be used in calling together the
Common Council, whose consent was henceforth necessary for the
levying of scutages and aids other than the three recognized ones.
Each archbishop, bishop, abbot, earl, and greater baron is to be
summoned by an individual letter, and all other tenants-in-chief are
to be summoned in general by the king's sheriffs and bailiffs. The
meeting is to be held at a fixed date and place, at least forty days
after the summons is issued, and all letters must state the reason for
the meeting. On the appointed day the business shall be taken up,
even though not all who were summoned have come.
This was not a representative gathering; it was simply an assembly
of all the tenantS'in'chief of the Crown. Its purpose was limited to
that of giving consent to the levying of a scutage or of an aid other
than the three previously mentioned. It could not make laws; it could
not affect the administration; it had no control over the king's min-
isters; it had no authority over the Exchequer; and it had no power
over taxation beyond the specified instances that affected only its own
members. Its function was mainly advisory.
Chapter 15. The forces opposed to John were not made up solely
of his barons or tenants-in-chief . The barons were in many cases at-
tended by their own tenants and retainers, who may often have had
against their lords grievances almost identical with those their lords
had against the king. The support of the citizens of London has al'
ready been mentioned as being responsible for the concessions granted
The Qreat Charter 291
to them. We may assume that the more moderate clerics, and espe-
cially Stephen Langton, helped unite this variegated crowd, moder-
ate the violence of their demands, and ensure that justice was done
to the smaller groups.
The support of their tenants was essential to the barons. They
therefore included a provision that lessened their own powers in or"
der to retain the good will and help of their tenants. In this chapter
the king promises that he will not in the future grant leave to anyone
to take an aid from his own free men, except in the three cases previ"
ously permitted to the king, and then only a reasonable aid will be
permitted.
Just as the king had been collecting aids from his tenants to help
him out of his financial difficulties, so the mesne lords had been pass*
ing those aids on to their tenants as well as collecting additional aids
from them for various purposes, usually in order to pay off their
debts. These aids could be collected only by the king's leave, for his
sheriffs were the executive authority in the counties and their help
would be needed in collecting the money. The following letter is
an example of the form in which that leave was granted (to one of
John's favorites):
THE KING, to all the knights and free tenants of the LORD
PETER, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, ETC. Be it known to you
that we have given permission to our venerable father in Christ,
the Lord Peter, Bishop of Winchester, your lord, to take a re&
sonable aid from you for the great expenses and labors that he
has incurred in preserving our honor and the dignity of the
Church. Wherefore we command you to give him such aid, be-
cause of this, that we and he may have reason to be grateful to
you. And so that you may do this the more freely and better,
we send you this our letter patent on the subject. MYSELF AS
WITNESS, at Clarendon, on the I4th day of April [1206].
z 9 2 Appendix
Apparently John had been selling these licenses to any needy lord
who was willing to pay for them, and this provision promises to put a
stop to the practice and to limit the aids to the three universally rec-
ognized*
Chapter 16. One of the most puzzling aspects of the Charter is
the fact that the chapters dealing with the most pressing disputes of
the time are the most vague. The chief bone of contention between
John and his barons throughout the reign had been their liability to
foreign service. John maintained that they were bound to serve him
wherever he might call them, and when he returned from Poitou in
i z 14 he attempted to collect a scutage from those who had not fol'
lowed him there.
The barons, on the other hand, were not able to agree on just what
their undisputed duty to render military service entailed. Some held
that they were not obliged to serve outside England, although all
precedents were to the contrary. Others, of an antiquarian or legalistic
turn of mind, declared that they were bound to follow the king only
in the territories over which William the Bastard had ruled when
he had conferred fiefs on their ancestors, and Poitou was not among
those territories. Still others argued that since John had lost Nor-
mandy through his own sloth and cowardice they were not bound to
help him try to regain it. They all agreed in objecting to going to
Poitou on the grounds that it was far away, the costs of the expedi*
tion would be great, and the king had little chance of regaining his
dominions in France in any case.
Now if ever would have seemed the time to settle this dispute,
and one would expect the barons, who had the upper hand, to force
the king to place a limit to their liability to foreign service. Instead, in
this chapter the king promises merely that no one shall be compelled
to render greater service for a knight's fee or for any other free holding
than is due from it. This settles nothing, for the whole dispute was
The Qreat Charter 293
over just that point of what was due from a fee that is here so airily
dismissed.
This chapter is the last of those dealing with strictly feudal matters.
The next few treat of legal procedure.
Chapter 17. In the time of Henry II, the king's household in*
eluded all the administrative, financial, and legal machinery of the
government. When the king went from place to place, all this moved
with him. A man trying to get justice from die King's Court had to
follow the king in his restless journeys over the country till he suc-
ceeded in getting the Court to hear him. This led to much delay, ex-
pense, and confusion. Gradually it came to be recognized that cases
in which the Crown was not directly concerned need not be heard
before the King's Court but might just as well be heard at one fixed
place by his judges. Hence pleas were divided into common pleas
and pleas of the Crown, and the former were heard at Westminster,
regardless of where the king might be. John rather fancied himself as
a lawyer, however, and he seems to have gone back to the old cus-
tom of hearing common pleas, in which he was not concerned, and
delivering judgments on them. This was recognized to be an abuse,
and in this chapter he agreed that common pleas were not to follow
his court about the country but were to be held in some fixed place.
Chapter 18. The great legal reforms for which Henry II is best
remembered had two principal aims: to replace the jurisdiction of
the various local and feudal courts by that of the royal courts and to
introduce a more rational spirit into legal procedure in place of the
various ordeals and trials by battle that had previously been custom-
ary. When Henry came to the throne many estates, as a result of the
anarchy and confusion under Stephen, were claimed by two or more
men. The customary procedure had been to let the two claimants
tt it out in a duel, with die winner gaining the land- To replace
2 9 4 Appendix
this primitive form of justice, Henry had recourse to the assize or
sworn inquest as a means of establishing rights of possession.
This chapter provides for the holding of three types of assizes or
sworn inquests, known as petty assizes. It states that inquests of novel
disseisin, mort d'ancestor, and darrein presentment shall be held only
in their own county courts and in the following manner: the king or,
if he is out of the country, his Chief Justiciar will send two justiciars
to each county four times a year. These judges, together with four
knights elected by the county court, shall hold the assizes in the
county court on the day and in the place that that court meets.
The three inquests or assizes all had to do with disputed possession
of land or rights. The inquest of novel disseisin was devised to hear
the claim of a man who stated that he had recently been dispossessed
of his land. That of mort d'ancestor was intended to enable an heir to
claim possession of his inheritance. The assize of darrein presentment
was to settle claims to the right of presenting or appointing an ecclesi-
astic to a vacant living.
In all three assizes the procedure was the same. Two itinerant jus-
ticiars appointed by the king or his Chief Justiciar were to make the
circuit of the county courts four times a year. The members of the
county court, which was made up of all the free men of the county,
were to elect four knights of the county to hear the inquests with the
itinerant justiciars. The inquest itself was decided on the oath of
twelve landholders of the neighborhood, who would give testimony
as to the facts of the case. If it were a case of novel disseisin, they
would be asked to tell under oath whether or not the claimant had
really had lawful possession of the land of which he claimed to have
been dispossessed. In a case of mort d'ancestor, they would establish
whether or not the claimant was indeed the rightful heir of the man
who had last had possession. Finally, in an assize of darrein present-
ment, they would under oath state who had made the presentation
when the living was last vacant.
The Qreat Charter 295
This procedure was quick and, depending as it did upon the
sworn testimony of reputable men of the neighborhood, certainly
more just than the old trial by combat. That it was popular is proved
by the insistence of the barons that these petty assizes be held four
times a year.
Chapter 19 provides that if all the business of the county court
cannot be done in one day, enough knights and freeholders shall re-
main as are required for making judgments, and by inference allows
the remainder of the suitors to return home. Attendance at the county
court was obligatory for all free men of the county.
Chapter 20 takes up the question of amercements. At this time,
if a man was convicted of a crime, he was said to fall into the king's
mercy, and the sum imposed on him in punishment was called an
amercement. Today this would be called a fine, but in John's time
that term was reserved for contributions, more or less voluntary, to
gain the king's favor, to escape his anger, or to secure some privilege.
In theory the size of the amercement was proportionate both to the
gravity of the offense and to the man's ability to pay. In practice one
can be certain that John set the highest sum he thought the unfortti'
nate man could pay, regardless of whether or not the payment might
crush him utterly.
To prevent men's being driven to destitution by John's rapacity,
the barons forced him to agree that a free man should not be amerced
for a petty crime except according to the degree of the crime, and for
a grave crime he should be amerced according to the gravity of the
crime, with the exception that he must be left enough to live on ac-
cording to his station in life. In the same way, a merchant must be left
enough to carry on his trade, and a villein, if he fell into the king's
mercy, must not be deprived of his tools, crops, and livestock. This,
incidentally, is the only time the Charter mentions villeins.
296 Appendix
To take the matter completely out of John's hands, it was stated
that amercements were to be imposed only on the oaths of trustworthy
men of the neighborhood, who would know the man's ability to pay
and still keep his means of livelihood.
Chapter 21 provides that earls and barons shall be amerced only
by their peers, and then only according to the degree of the crime.
This chapter deprives John of the right to amerce his nobles at his
own pleasure, but it does not provide the machinery for assessing
the amercement in the precise way that the preceding chapter
does for men of lesser degree. They might be amerced by their peers
either at a meeting of the Great Council or by the Barons of the Ex*
chequer.
Chapter 22 extends the benefits enumerated in the two preceding
chapters to the clergy, with the further provision that clerks are to be
amerced only according to their lay holdings; the benefices they hold
by virtue of their ecclesiastical positions are not to be considered in
assessing the amercement. This chapter seems to imply that clerics
were regularly tried in civil courts for civil offenses without benefit
of clergy.
Chapter 23 introduces an abrupt change of subject. No village or
man, it provides, shall be forced to make bridges at river banks, un*
less such an obligation exists legally and from of old. The duty of re*
pairing bridges was one of the threefold obligations in England be"
fore the Conquest, bearing first on all free men individually and later
on a district as a whole. In view of the limited means of communica"
tion, it would seem strange at first sight that the barons should at-
tempt to discourage the king's efforts at improving those means.
John was interested in having bridges built, however, not out of
The Qreat Charter 297
concern for the welfare of his subjects, but in order to facilitate his
indulgence in falconry. When the king intended to engage in this
sport, he would issue letters to the sheriff of the county he planned to
visit, ordering that bridges be made or repaired in the district and
that the taking of birds be prohibited till after his visit. The griev-
ance, then, was not against the building of bridges as such but against
the unnecessary building of bridges in order to facilitate the king's
movements when he went "revaying" and against the prohibition of
other people's sport while the king was in the neighborhood. This is
made clear by the fact that in the third revision of the Charter, in
1225, this chapter is immediately followed by one providing that no
river bank shall be put "in defence"; that is, closed to all hunters save
the king, except those that were in defence in the time of Henry IL
This prohibition is part of Chapter 47 of the original Charter.
Chapter 24 returns to matter of legal procedure. Chapter 17 dealt
with the common pleas; the present section is concerned with pleas of
the Crown; that is, of matters in which the Crown was particularly
interested. These embraced all serious offenses, in which the king
was concerned because they were breaches of his peace. This chapter
provides that no sheriff, constable, coroner, or other royal bailiff shall
hold pleas of the Crown. The proper persons for trying these pleas
were the itinerant justiciars, who visited each county every seven
years.
Hubert Walter, as Chief Justiciar, in the "Articles of the Eyre" of
1 1 94, had made die wise ruling that no sheriff could act as justiciar
in his own county or any other county in which he had held office
since the beginning of the reign. A sheriff would be too intimately
concerned in the affairs of his county to act as an impartial judge.
This prohibition had continued in effect, in theory at least, during
John's reign, but some of his sheriffs and castellans had been attempt-
2 g 8 Appendix
ing to usurp the justiciars* functions. In many cases, furthermore, they
were foreigners and lawless characters, and people had reason to
dread their intervention and to demand that only the duly authorized
justiciars should judge serious cases.
Chapter 25 provides that all counties, hundreds, wapentakes, and
tithings shall be at the old farms without increase, except the king's
demesne manors. In Anglo-Saxon times it was the duty of the sheriff
to collect the Crown revenues, which would come mainly from the
king's demesne manors and from the fines levied in the various
courts, and transmit them to the royal treasury. Even before the Con-
quest, however, the expedient was adopted of farming out the county
to the sheriff in return for a fixed annual sum. It was then up to the
sheriff to collect at least that sum from the county, unless he wanted
to make up the difference from his own purse. Anything remaining
over went into his pocket. That the surplus was considerable is evi-
dent from the amount of money men were willing to pay for the of"
fice of sheriff. William de Stuteville, for instance, paid John a thou"
sand pounds in 1201 to be Sheriff of Yorkshire, and this sum is not
an uncommon one for the larger counties.
As the expenses of the administration increased, as prices steadily
rose, and also as the proceeds from the county, because of the gen"
eral prosperity that England enjoyed at this time, likewise increased,
the old or accustomed farm did not represent a fair return, and the
king attempted to increase the farm whenever he could. Each in"
crease in the farm was passed on to the county at large in the shape
of increased rents from the royal manors and more numerous and
heavier fines in the courts. Since the royal manors were exempt from
this provision, the effect intended by this reestablishing of the farm
at the old and customary rates was to prohibit the sheriff from hi"
creasing his income from the courts by summoning them at frequent
intervals and fining those who were bound to attend but did not ap*
The Qreat Charter z 9 9
pear and by levying drastic fines for those offences that came within
the jurisdiction of his courts.
Chapter 26 describes the procedure to be followed when a tenant"
in'chief dies in debt to the Crown, and it protects his property from
the wholesale confiscation that was often practiced by an unscrupu-
lous sheriff. The sheriff or bailiff must first exhibit the royal letters
patent summoning the deceased for a debt that he owed the Crown.
After this proof has been established, the sheriff or bailiff is to attach
and list the chattels to the value of the debt, in the presence of law-
worthy men, and nothing is to be removed till the debt has been paid.
After it has been paid, the remainder of the chattels shall be left to
the executors of the will of the deceased, after reasonable shares have
been given to the widow and the children. Reasonable shares for the
widow and the children were fixed by custom at one'third for the
widow and one-third for the children. The remaining third was used
to fulfill the will, which generally directed that this share be used for
pious purposes. All these provisions, of course, relate only to chattels
or personal property; the laws regarding succession to land were fixed
and could not be altered by a dying man in such a way as to prevent
his lawful heir from succeeding to his lands.
Chapter 27. During this period, to die without having made a will
disposing of one's chattels was regarded with horror. It was some*
thing more than a misfortune; it was considered as almost sinful,
since the last testament was made by the dying man in the presence of
the priest who had come to administer the Last Sacraments to him,
and to die without having made that testament implied that one had
died unshriven and cut off from the Christian community. In such a
case, the man's lord confiscated all his property.
To prevent this injustice, this chapter specifies that when a free
man dies intestate, his chattels shall be distributed by his nearest kins-
3 o o Appendix
man and friends, under the supervision of the Church, excepting to
each one the debts the deceased owed him. This distribution was
placed under the supervision of the Church both because the last
testament was normally made in the presence of a priest and because
the majority of testators left some of their property to the Church to
be given to the poor, to provide for Masses, and for other pious pur-
poses.
Chapter 28 restricts the exercise of the royal prerogative of pur*
veyance, the right of requisitioning the supplies needed by the royal
household. This privilege was enjoyed by the constables of the king's
castles, who might pre-empt supplies for the garrisons at the market
price. As John lost the support of his barons and knights, who would
be the proper persons to take charge of his castles, he often entrusted
them to his foreign favorites and mercenary captains. These lawless
men preyed on their districts and took whatever they needed without
paying for it. To correct this abuse, this chapter provides that no
constable or other royal bailiff shall take corn or other provisions
from anyone without paying money for them immediately, unless the
seller voluntarily gives him a postponement. Money is specified be-
cause sometimes payment was made in vouchers which could be used
only in payments to the royal treasury.
Chapter 29. Another offence of John's constables was connected
with the duty of castle-guard. Some fiefs carried with them the obli-
gation to serve in the garrison of a royal castle for a specified number
of days every year. John preferred to man his castles with trusted
mercenaries rather than with Englishmen, and he and his constables
often tried to force men who were obliged to perform castle-guard to
make a money compensation instead. This chapter provides that no
constable shall compel any knight to give money in place of castle-
guard if he wants to stand guard either in his own person or by an-
The Qreat Charter 301
other trustworthy man, if he himself cannot do it through any reason-
able cause; and that if the king has led or sent the knight on military
service he shall be quit from castle-guard according to the length of
time he was on service. The fact that the barons insisted on perform-
ing castle'guard in person rather than on settling for a monetary com-
mutation would suggest that John and his constables tried to collect
an exorbitant fee, rather than one based upon the daily pay of a hired
knight.
Chapter 30 further restricts the right of purveyance by stipulating
that no sheriff, royal bailiff, or anyone else may take the horses or carts
of any free man for transport service unless the free man voluntarily
gives his consent.
Chapter 31. The chapters dealing with purveyance restrict the
rights of the royal officers only; this chapter forbids both the king
and his officers to take any wood that is not the king's, either for
his castles or for any other work, without the consent of the owner,
regardless of the compensation. The king's forests were of such great
extent that he should have had no reason for augmenting his supply
by taking wood from others.
Chapter 32 provides that the king may not keep for more than a
year and a day the lands of those who have been convicted of felony,
and at the end of that time the lands shall be returned to the lord of
the fief to which they belong. When a man was convicted of a felony,
he forfeited his lands, and the Crown had the right to occupy them
for a year and a day, during which period everything of any value
was removed. At the end of this time, the devastated estate should be
returned to the felon's lord if the felon was not a Crown tenant. John,
however, once he got the land, held on to it, refusing to surrender it
to the lord of whom the felon had held it. The purpose of this chap-
302 Appendix
ter is to force him to relinquish the lands after he had enjoyed the cus-
tomary year and a day of occupation and devastation.
Chapter 33. Rivers at this time were a most important means of
communication, and on them barges could transport heavier cargoes
than could be carried in cumbersome carts over wretched roads. The
building of fish weirs across streams obviously would create obstacles
to the free passage of river traffic. This chapter provides that all fish
weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and through-
out England, except along the seacoasts, where they would not con-
stitute an obstruction.
Chapter 34 illustrates most clearly the efforts of the barons to undo
the legal reforms of Henry II and to regain the powers of which he
had deprived them. It provides that henceforth the writ Precipe shall
not be issued to anyone concerning any holding by which a free man
might lose his court.
A fundamental principle of feudal law was that disputes concern-
ing the possession of land should be settled in the court of the lord of
that fief, since the land was held of him and since he and the two dis-
putants were the only people concerned in the matter. Henry II
strove persistently to curtail the privileges and powers of his barons
and particularly to extend the jurisdiction of the royal courts at the
expense of the courts baron. Not even Henry in all his strength dared
so openly to violate custom as to decree that suits concerning the pos-
session of land were to be tried only in the royal courts. He devised
instead the expedient of issuing the writ Precipe, which had the in-
tended effect of removing the case into the royal court, but only in
the individual case for which the writ was issued. Thus the general
principle was preserved, while at the same time the way was laid
open for so many exceptions that in practice it was completely un-
dermined.
The Qreat Charter 303
The writ in question was a direct intervention by the king in a dis-
pute concerning the possession of land. It was addressed to the sher-
iff, bidding him order (Precipe quod reddat) N. to give back the
land in question to M. or else to appear before the king or his jus-
ticiars to explain why he had not done so. If the order was obeyed
and the land was given back, the lord's court was thus bypassed; if it
was not obeyed, the case was taken directly to the royal courts.
If the land in question belonged to the royal demesne, the barons
had no objection to the use of the writ Precipe, for the king as lord of
the land in question was the proper person to settle the dispute. If the
land was held of a mesne lord, however, the practical effect of the
use of the writ would be that the lord, the "free man" of this chapter,
would be deprived of his customary Jurisdiction over such disputes
and hence would 'lose his court/' John encouraged the use of the
writ Precipe, both because the fees paid to obtain it increased the
royal income and because he was greatly interested in all the details of
legal administration and liked to hear cases himself.
Chapter 35 stipulates that there shall be uniform weights and
measures, particularly of wine, ale, corn, and cloth, throughout the
kingdom.
Chapter 36 returns to the subject of legal procedure. Whereas the
barons, in Chapter 34, attempted to undo some of the work of
Henry II, the present chapter provides that one of his most impor-
tant reforms shall be available freely to everyone who asks for it. In
the future, it states, no payment shall be given or taken for the writ of
inquisition of life or limbs, but it shall be granted freely and not
denied.
Before Henry II improved the procedure, a man could accuse an-
other of homicide and thus force him to defend himself against the
accuser by engaging, in his own person, in a trial by combat. Henry
304 Appendix
did not like such a primitive and unjust method of solving so grave a
question, in which the verdict depended not upon the guilt or inno-
cence of the accused but upon his physical strength. A strong and
ruthless man might accomplish the ruin of a weaker neighbor merely
by bringing an unfounded accusation against him.
Henry accordingly devised the writ, here called "of inquisition of
life or limbs" but more commonly known as De odio et atia, to give
the accused man a chance of escaping trial by battle. By declaring
that his accuser acted "through spite and hate/' he might secure from
the king a writ directing that the sworn testimony of twelve of his
neighbors be taken. If these men upheld his contention, the accusa-
tion was dismissed and there was no necessity for the trial by combat.
Furthermore, the accuser would be liable to amercement for bringing
false charges. This procedure was so just and rational that the barons
insisted that the writ securing it be given without charge to all who
asked for it.
Chapter 37 returns to the subject of wardship. Although most
tenures were based on knight-service, some lands were held by the
payment of an annual rent (fee-farm), the rendering of specified ag-
ricultural services (socage or, if the land lay within a free borough,
burgage), or the fulfilling of certain nominal services (petty ser-
geancy). It was just and right that the king should have rights of
wardship over an estate held by military service, for a boy could not
render die service that was the basis of the contract. John seems,
however, to have claimed this right over heirs to lands held by the
various forms of non-military service. This was unjust, for the rent or
services could just as well be rendered by the heir or his servants, re-
gardless of his age. The barons forced the king, in this chapter, to re-
nounce his pretensions to these wardships to which he was not en-
titled.
A more complicated case arose when a man held land of the
The Qreat Charter 305
Crown by one of the non'military tenures and also held of a mesne
lord by knight'service. If he died and left a minor heir, John often
claimed wardship both over the heir and over the lands that he held
of the mesne lord. This was even more unjust than the other claim,
and John was forced to renounce it also. Wardship both of the heir
and of the land went to the lord of the fief that was held by military
service.
Chapter 38 provides that in the future no bailiff shall put anyone
to his "law" on his own complaint alone, without trustworthy wit"
nesses brought for this purpose. To be put to one's "law" was the cni"
cial step in judicial procedure at this time. Juries did not have the final
word in pronouncing a man innocent or guilty. After hearing the ev
idence, they merely decided whether or not it was sufficiently weighty
to justify putting the accused to his "law/* that is, forcing him to un*
dergo the test that would establish his innocence or guilt. The test
was by ordeal of fire or water, by trial by combat, or by compurga"
tion.
Usually only women were put to the ordeal by fire, which con*
sisted of carrying a hot iron a specified distance. The burned hand
was then wrapped in cloth. After three days the bandage was re"
moved, and if die burn was healing cleanly the accused was consid"
ered innocent.
In the ordeal by water, the accused was thrown into a pool of wa*
ter that had been blessed for this purpose by a priest. If the water re*
ceived him; that is, if he sank, he was innocent; if the water rejected
him, he was guilty. Even though a man had succeeded in clearing
himself by the ordeal by water, the Assize of Northampton, in 1 176,
declared that if he had been accused of murder or other disgraceful
crime by the county court and law-worthy knights of his own neigh-
borhood, he had to leave the kingdom within forty days and abjure
die realm.
3 o 6 Appendix
In a trial by combat the accuser and the accused, or their cham-
pions, fought till one or the other was vanquished or killed. That
prisoners were allowed to keep themselves in good condition for
their approaching ordeal is shown by the following order:
THE KING, to the Constable of Winchester: GREETINGS.
We command you to allow Jordan de Blarney, a knight whom
you have in our prison, to go out of the prison twice a day or
more to practice swordplay, and in his place hold Oliver de Vaux
in prison until he returns, and when he returns then allow the
same Oliver to go out and go where he pleases. And see to it, as
you value all that you have and your body, that the same Jordan
is kept in safe custody. MYSELF AS WITNESS, at Brook, on the
22nd day of July [1207],
Compurgation was the method normally used in courts Christian,
although it was occasionally used in civil cases. The accused swore to
his innocence, and to his testimony was added that of as many "oath-
helpers" as he could find. If a sufficient number of reputable men
were willing to swear to his innocence, he was cleared of the accusa-
tion.
These ordeals were crude methods of determining a man's inno-
cence or guilt. The Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, forbade
priests, who blessed the water or pronounced the burn to be healing
cleanly, to take any part in them. By John's reign, those accused of
crime were beginning to be allowed to have their cases heard by a
jury who, after hearing the evidence, would pronounce the verdict,
without the necessity of an ordeal.
This chapter of the Charter, however, refers to the primitive or-
deals. They are not to be inflicted irresponsibly, merely on the un-
supported complaint of one of John's agents. He promises that in die
future the established procedure will be observed, whereby the ac"
*I he (jreat V barter 307
cusation must be supported by the oaths of lawworthy men before
the accused can be put to the ordeal.
In Chapter 39, one of the most famous ones of the Charter, John
promises: "No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or
outlawed or exiled, nor will we go upon him or send upon him, ex*
cept by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."
This is commonly thought to guarantee trial by jury to ail English"
men, but a careful reading of the text will show that such is not the
case. In the first place, it applies only to free men, who made up
probably a fourth of the population, the remainder being villeins. In
the second place, trial by jury in criminal cases, as we understand the
term, was a new, rare, and expensive procedure. The Pipe Rolls for
12 10 and 1 21 1 record eight payments in each year, ranging from
half a mark to a hundred shillings "for having a jury/' and only one
such payment is recorded for 1212.
What were called juries in John's day were sworn inquests or fact-
finding commissions that settled such matters of fact as the ownership
of land, and furies of presentment or accusing juries, whose func"
tions are described above. Trying juries as we understand the term
were just beginning to be used in criminal cases. One had to buy a
special writ for the privilege, and no one could be forced to submit
to "the verdict of twelve ." Since no distinction was made, apparently,
between the accusing jury and the trying jury and the witnesses could
sit on the jury, it could not have been a satisfactory device in many
cases.
The legal rights granted to every free man by this chapter were
that the accusation against him was to be heard by men of station
equal to his, who would then decide whether or not he should be
put to the proof or "law/* what form that "law" should take, and,
when he had submitted to it, whether he had succeeded. 'The law
of the land" may mean either that the "law" or proof should be one
3 o 8 Appendix
of the conventional and recognized ones, or it may have the wider
meaning of the generally accepted body of legal principles current at
the time.
In any case, the effect of this provision was to force John to abide
by the established legal procedure rather than to take the law into his
own hands in dealing with those he considered his enemies, as he did
when he imprisoned and starved Maude de Braose and her son in
1 21 o and as he had attempted to do in the summer of 1 21 3, when
he started to "go upon 3 ' his barons and was dissuaded by Stephen
Langton,
Chapter 40 is equally famous and perhaps equally misunderstood.
In it John promises: 'To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny
or put off right or justice." This does not mean that justice was to be
had for nothing in John's courts. Going into the courts has always
been an expensive business. To be sure, John sold writs, in the sense
that fees were collected for writs that obtained some special and
speedy procedure that put the members of the royal courts to unusual
trouble, but to charge for these writs was not the same thing as selling
justice. In many cases, however, John exacted such heavy fees that
it looked for all the world as though he were selling justice.
The king in his ceaseless peregrinations through the country heard
many cases, and it would seem that occasionally he allowed hand"
some gifts to influence his decisions. It was within his power also to
refuse to hear certain pleaders and to postpone cases to his advantage,
and these are the abuses that he renounces.
Chapter 41 enumerates the privileges accorded to foreign traders.
There was no need to treat of native merchants, for their affairs were
regulated by their guilds and by the various city and borough char-
ters. In time of peace, merchants are to be allowed to enter and to
leave England and to tarry there and to move about in safety, and to
The Qreat Charter 309
buy and sell according to the ancient and rightful customs, free from
all evil tolls. In time of war, merchants of the enemy country are to
be detained without injury to themselves or their wares till the king
can learn how English merchants are being treated in the enemy
country.
The king had direct supervision over foreign trade, and it was a
recognized practice for him to receive a toll of a fifteenth or a tenth
part of a foreign cargo landed in England. John's rapacity, however,
led him to increase the exactions and lay heavier and thus "evil" tolls.
This both discouraged the foreign merchants from coming and led
them to increase the price of their wares to reimburse themselves.
Since the foreign merchants dealt in luxuries and hence catered to the
wealthier classes, it was to the barons* interest as consumers to see
that the merchants were allowed all possible freedom and protected
from high tolls, which they would pass on to their customers.
Chapter 42 permits anyone, except prisoners, outlaws, and, in
time of war, natives of an enemy country, to leave England and to
return safely and securely. Few Englishmen, except the clergy, could
have had any reason for leaving the country at this time. Since the
loss of Normandy, nobles who had estates on both sides of the Chan-
nel had either divided them among different branches of their fami-
lies or forfeited their lands in one country or the other, and hence the
barons would have little occasion for foreign travel. Neither would
the merchants, for the foreign trade of the country was conducted al-
most wholly by foreigners. The clergy, however, with the increasing
complexity of the procedure of the Papal Curia and the ever-widen-
ing field of jurisdiction that it claimed, would have ample reason to
go to Rome, both in connection with cases in which they were con-
cerned and in efforts to advance themselves.
Henry II, in the Constitutions of Clarendon in 1 164, had ruled:
"It is not permitted to archbishops, bishops, and 'parsons 3 of the king-
3 i o Appendix
dom to go out of the kingdom without the permission of the Lord
King/' The practical effect of this chapter of the Charter, then, was
to repeal this provision of the earlier document and allow the clergy
to carry their appeals to Rome without the necessity for the royal per-
mission. This chapter was no doubt put in at the suggestion of Ste-
phen Langton and his bishops, and John, in his role of Crusader and
Vassal of die Holy See, was pleased to give his consent.
Chapter 43 clears up a fine point of feudal law regarding land ten"
ures. When a tenant-in-chief forfeited his lands to the Crown, all
those who held land of him now moved up one rung on the ladder
and became tenants-in-chief. In cases where their feudal dues and
obligations as subtenants had been less than those normally required
of tenants-in-chief, John tried to increase their dues to conform to
their new status, which brought them, however, no increase in land
or income with which to meet his demands. This section accordingly
provides that if anyone holds land that has been part of a forfeited
estate, he shall pay no other reliefs and perform no other services than
he would if the estate had not been forfeited.
Chapter 44 is the first of those dealing with the forest laws.
est" is a technical term applied to those areas set aside for the king's
hunting. There "the beasts of the forest/' deer and wild boars, were
protected by the stringent forest laws, and the common law of the
country did not run. Almost a third of the country, including the
whole of Essex, was under the forest law. A forest might and often
did include populous districts with much arable land. Free men dwell-
ing within the boundaries of the forest were obliged to attend the
forest courts, just as those living outside had to attend the various
courts in which the common law was administered. The obligation
to attend the forest courts was extended to those dwelling in the
neighborhood of a forest but not within it, which worked a severe
The Qreat Charter 311
hardship upon them. In addition to attending the ordinary courts,
they were faced either with a second loss of time in attending the for*
est courts or with the necessity of paying a fine for not attending ses"
sions of a court in which they were not concerned.
This abuse was corrected by this chapter, which provides that men
who live outside the forest need not attend the forest courts unless
they are accused of offences against the forest laws or are pledges for
anyone so accused.
Chapter 45. Most of the provisions of the Charter propose defi-
nite and specific remedies for the evils they seek to correct. Chapter
45 departs from this standard, however, for in it the king promises
that he will appoint as his justices, constables, sheriffs, and bailiffs
only those men who know the law of the kingdom and truly wish to
keep it. This promise is so vague that it has little force. It provides
no standards by which the fitness of John's officers is to be determined
and sets up no authority to pass on their fitness.
One class of officials, nevertheless, is debarred even by these vague
qualifications: John's foreign favorites, who were becoming increa$'
ingly powerful as they were appointed to responsible positions. They
knew nothing of the laws of England and showed no desire to keep
them. Some of these men are mentioned by name in Chapter 50, as
though the barons recognized that Chapter 45 might be too vague to
secure their removal.
Chapter 46 provides that barons who have founded abbeys or who
have succeeded to the right of wardship over them shall have the
right of wardship over them when the office of abbot is vacant. Both
the Kings of England and their barons had founded abbeys and en-
dowed them with lands; even John founded an abbey, that of Beau-*
lieu. In return for this endowment, the founder exercised the right of
wardship over the abbey's lands when the office of abbot was vacant,
3 i 2 Appendix
just as the king exercised the right of wardship over the lands of a
bishopric when the episcopal chair was vacant.
The intention of this chapter was not to assert a right that the
Church denied but rather to provide that the founder or his successor
should have that right, in spite of the king's efforts to take over the
wardship of all vacant abbeys, whether they had been founded by his
royal ancestors or by another.
Chapter 47 returns to the subject of forests by providing that all
areas that had been made forests in John's time should immediately
be disafforested and that a similar course should be followed con"
cerning river banks that had been put "in defence" in that time.
Forests could be made or extended by the king's sole word. This
would inflict great hardship on the people affected, for they were
brought under the rigorous forest laws and deprived of many of their
customary rights, in the interests of preserving the king's game. Al-
though John created no new forests, he extended the boundaries of
some of the existing ones. The barons forced him to agree that the
forests should be restored to the boundaries obtaining when he came
to the throne.
River banks might also be put "in defence" for a period of time
when the king wanted to go hawking, and during this time no one
else might practice the sport in that area. John agreed to restrict his
exercise of the right to those river banks that were customarily placed
"in defence" at the beginning of his reign.
Chapter 48 is a sweeping condemnation of all "evil customs" per-
taining to the forests, the river banks, and the sheriffs 'and their ad-
ministration, and it sets up the machinery whereby they are to be ex-
tirpated. The honest men of each county are to elect twelve knights
of that county, who are to inquire into all the "evil customs" practiced
both within the royal forests by the foresters and within the counties
The Qreat Charter 313
by the sheriffs and their officers. Such evil customs as the knights
condemn are to be abolished utterly, so that they may never be
restored, within forty days of the inquest, provided that notice is
given to the king or to his Chief Justiciar, if the king is out of the
country.
Chapter 49 promises to redress one of the worst abuses of John's
reign, the taking of hostages and charters. The taking of hostages to
secure the fulfillment of a treaty or as a guarantee of good behavior
from a recently conquered rebel was a normal practice. John, how
ever, early in his reign began to take as hostages the children or other
near relations of such of his nobles as he suspected of disaffection, in
order to guard himself against their rebelling. This cowardly but cun-
ning device culminated in his demanding hostages of all the nobles of
the kingdom in 1208, when the imposition of the interdict had made
him doubtful as to how much support he might receive from them.
The fate that might befall his hostages is illustrated by the hanging of
the young Welsh hostages in the summer of 1212.
When he took hostages from them, John usually required his no-
bles to give him at the same time a charter pledging him their faithful
service and confirming their oaths of fealty. As a further precaution,
he sometimes forced them to surrender to him the charters whereby
they held their lands, so that their tenure henceforth depended wholly
upon his good will and might be terminated by him at any time,
leaving them with no documentary proof of their claims. Men went
to great trouble and expense to secure written evidence of their rights
to lands and privileges and to obtain the king's confirmation of these
charters. In some cases, they even instituted fictitious suits, in order
that the "final concord" might be made a matter of record.
In this provision of the Charter, John undertook to restore all
hostages and charters immediately.
314 Appendix
Chapter 50 promises to remove from their offices a group of
Frenchmen, mentioned by name, "and all their brood/* All those
named came from the vicinity of Tours and had been made sheriffs,
forest wardens, or constables of royal castles by John. They were his
willing agents, knowing and caring little about the laws of England,
and their extortions were a source of bitter complaint.
Chapter 51. In addition to these outstanding foreigners, there re*
mained the mercenary troops that John had brought from abroad to
man his castles. In this chapter he promised that as soon as peace was
restored he would remove from the kingdom all foreign knights,
crossbowmen, sergeants, and mercenaries.
Chapter 52 provides that if John had dispossessed or removed any-
one from his lands, castles, liberties, or rights, without the lawful judg-
ment of his equals, he will restore them to him immediately. If any
dispute arises, it is to be settled by the committee of twenty-five bar-
ons called for by Chapter 61. If, however, it is claimed that such
wrongs were committed by Johns father or by his brother Richard,
the King is to enjoy the Crusader's respite of three years before the
matter is decided and restitution effected.
Chapter 53. John had already agreed to disafforest the lands he
had made forests and to relinquish wardships to which he was not en-
titled. This chapter modifies that renunciation to some extent. Lands
that John had made forests are to be disafforested immediately, but
he is allowed the Crusader's respite in dealing with lands made for-
ests by Henry II and Richard and in restoring wardship to their
proper owners.
Chapter 54 provides that no one shall be taken or imprisoned
upon the appeal of a woman for the death of anyone except her bus-
The Qreat Charter 3 i 5
band. Although, according to ancient English custom, a woman was
allowed to bring accusations only of the rape of herself or of the mur-
der of her husband, in these two cases she enjoyed a special privilege
because of her sex. If a man accused another of murder, both the ac-
cuser and the accused had to submit to the ordeal of battle in their
own persons. If the accuser were a woman, however, she was allowed
to choose a champion to fight in her place.
This reaffirmation in the Charter of the customary limitation upon
a woman's right of appeal would seem to indicate that women had
been allowed to bring accusations of murder not only of their hus-
bands, as was their right, but also of their male relatives. In July
1 2 1 2, for example, John ordered the Sheriff of Buckingham to de-
liver to Geoffrey FitzPeter for safekeeping Samuel FitzRichard and
Philip his brother, whom Alina, the wife of William of Poitou, had
accused of the murder of her son William. Furthermore, as a letter
close of May 28, 1207 in which John tells the Sheriff of Lincoln
that three of his justices are coming there to hear the appeal that Ag-
nes, the daughter of Richard the Clerk, has made against a group of
people, accusing them of breach of the peace and robbery would
indicate, the latitude allowed female appellants had been greatly ex"
tended.
This would allow women who enjoyed the friendship of particu-
larly strong and warlike men a great deal of irresponsible freedom in
making accusations against people they did not like. The solution de-
vised by the barons, whose chivalric feelings had apparently been
sorely tried, was to reaffirm the limitation of a woman's right to ap-
peal to the sole case of the murder of her husband.
Chapter 55 is one of the most sweeping provisions of the Charter.
In it John promises either to remit entirely all fines and amercements
made by him unjustly and against the law of the land or to submit
them to arbitration. Disputed cases are to be decided by the commit-
3 i 6 Appendix
tee of twenty'five barons or by a majority of them, together with Ste"
phen Langton and such others as he may want to bring with him. If
any of the twenty-five barons is interested in a similar suit, his place
shall be taken by another.
John had found in the levying of unjust amercements and the im-
position of excessive fines a profitable means of replenishing his treas"
ury and at the same time punishing his enemies, and he exercised
great ingenuity in this field. Amercements were out of all proportion
to the gravity of the offenses, and fines were exacted in accordance
with the wealth of the victim and the ill will that John bore him.
Especially noteworthy about the composition of the board of ar'
bitration to pass on the justice and legality of the fines and amerce-'
ments is the fact that Stephen Langton was given authority to join it
and to bring as many men with him as he wanted. This concession in"
dicates the confidence the barons placed in his judgments.
Chapters 56, 57, and 58 extend to the Welsh the promises John
had made to restore immediately all illegal disseisins that he had
made, to restore after the Crusader's respite those made by his father
and his brother, and to return the hostages and charters he had taken
as securities. Included among the Welsh hostages was a son of Lly
welyn ap lorwerth.
Chapter 59. Having thus placated the Welsh, the barons inserted
a chapter dealing with Scottish affairs. The young Alexander had suc-
ceeded his father as King of the Scots in the preceding December,
and he favored the barons in their struggle. This chapter strikes a bal*
ance between placating Alexander and preserving the claims of the
English Crown to the homage of the Scottish king. It provides: "We
will do to Alexander, the King of the Scots, concerning the returning
of his sisters and hostages, and his liberties and his right, according to
the way in which we shall do to our other barons of England, unless
The Qreat Charier 317
it should be otherwise through the charters we have from his father
William, the former King of the Scots, and this shall be by the judg"
ment of his equals in our court/ 3
Alexander's sisters were Margaret and Isabel. They are not to be
confused with William's two bastard daughters of the same names,
who were married, respectively, to Eustace de Vesci and Robert de
Ros. The two legitimate daughters had been given to John as wards
and virtual hostages by their father in June izog, and were being
kept in Corfe Castle.
John promised to restore Alexander's liberties and rights in the
same way that he would do to his other barons, for Alexander, while
King of the Scots, was also a baron of England by virtue of holding
the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland of
the English King. Thus Alexander's equals in an English court
would be John's other barons. No mention was made of the feudal
lordship over the whole of Scotland that Henry II had wrested from
the defeated William the Lion in 1 174.
Chapter 60 was probably the price the barons had to pay to their
tenants for their support. It provides that all the customs and liber"
ties that John has conceded to his barons shall in turn be observed by
them, whether clerics or laymen, in their dealings with their tenants.
The barons themselves were a small group, and for their military
forces they had to depend upon their feudal tenants. It was both just
and discreet, then, that the agreements covering the relations between
the king and his tenantS'in*chief should be extended to the relations
between the mesne lords and their tenants, who made up the greater
part of the barons' army.
The concluding chapters, which set up the means for enforcing the
Charter, are discussed in Chapter XII.
3 i 8 Appendix
The Charter as issued in 1215 had little practical effect, for its
nullification by the Pope, the outbreak of civil war, and the death of
John prevented most of its provisions from being put into practice. It
was, however, universally recognized as a remedy for all the evil ways
into which the government had fallen since the days of Henry II and
as a statement of the rights and privileges of free men. Henceforth it
was to take the place in men's minds of "the good laws of King Ed-
ward" and "the laws of Henry I" as the ideal that should guide the
king and his ministers in their government of the country and that
should protect men's rights against the encroachments of the king.
The barons attached such importance to the Charter that shortly
after die young Henry was crowned, in order to draw them away
from Louis and to assure them that their liberties would be respected,
William Marshal, as Rector regis et regni, and the Legate Gualo is-
sued, under their seals, a slightly revised version of the Charter on
November 16, 1216. Those chapters referring specifically to John
or for which the necessity had already passed were of course omitted.
The barons deserted Louis in ever-increasing numbers and re-
turned to their rightful allegiance. Louis recognized that he had no
chance of winning the crown of England. By the Treaty of Lambeth,
in September 1217, he agreed to withdraw from England with his
troops. The nation was at last reunited, and in recognition of that fact
a second revision of the Charter was issued on November 6, 1 2 1 7. It
was accompanied by a Forest Charter, setting forth the laws that dealt
with the king's forests. The name Magna Carta was apparently ap-
plied to the Charter for the first time in the following year, to distin-
guish it from the Forest Charter.
Henry III did not reach his majority till October I, 1228, but as
he approached that age he began to take an active part in the govern-
ment. In December 1224, & e regents asked for the grant of a fif-
teenth of all movable property to meet the expenses of the admin-
istration. The Great Council set a precedent for almost all succeeding
The Qreal Charter 3 1 9
Parliaments for several centuries when they were presented with a
similar demand. They made the grant conditional upon the confirma-
tion of the Charter. Accordingly, on February 1 1, 1225, the third
and final revision of the Charter was issued, in the form in which it
was known to succeeding generations. It was issued under the king's
seal, and Henry specified that he was acting spontanea et bona w
luntate.
This confirmation of the Charter was a most solemn occasion, and
Stephen Langton and the assembled bishops pronounced a sentence
of excommunication against all who violated it. Throughout the
Middle Ages, this sentence was solemnly proclaimed in all the
churches of England twice a year. In the latter years of Henry's reign
and for many years thereafter, the Charter was commonly referred to
as Magna Carta communium libertatum Angliae "the Great Char-
ter of the common liberties of England/*
Gradually a document that was originally devised to provide spe-
cific remedies for the specific complaints of a group of feudal barons
concerned to protect their feudal privileges against the encroachments
of a grasping king became the safeguard of the liberties of the subject
against the arbitrary will of the sovereign. With each age the interpre-
tation of the Charter varied, and at times its provisions were vio-
lently twisted to meet situations for which they were not devised and
which could not possibly have been in the minds of the men who
framed it.
Underlying all these varying interpretations and the changes
wrought by succeeding centuries, however, is the fundamental con-
cept upon which the Charter and the Constitution of England, of
which it is the cornerstone, rest: that the king is subject, not superior,
to the law.
INDEX
Adela, d. of King William I, 59
Adeliza, wife of King Henry I, 233
Adrian IV, Pope, 267
Agnes of Meran, 96, 101, 177
Aids, feudal, 277, 2-88-92
Albemarle, see Aumale
Albini, Philip, 236, 257
Albini, William de, see Arundel
Albini, William of, Lord of Bel-
voir, see Willkm of Albini
Alexander III, Pope, n, 13, 27,
3i. 49
Alexander II, King of Scotland,
178, 223, 258, 268, 316-
17
Alexander the Mason, 1701,
225-6, 273
Alice, d. of King Louis VII, 37
9, 60, 63
Alice of Maurienne, 1416, 18
Amercement, 295-6, 315-16
Amicia, d. of Earl of Gloucester,
19, 228
Annals of the Four Masters, 30,
35
Arthur of Brittany, 47, 79, 84-
6, 92-4, 97, U4-I7, i57>
173, 263-4
Arundel, Earl of (William de A1-*
bini), 88, 194, 233, 236,
240, 265
AumMe, Earls of:
William le Gros, 285-6
William de Fors, 286
Baldwin of Bethune, 128, 286
William de Fors II, 233, 240,
257, 286
Aumale, Hadwisa, Countess of,
285-6
Aymar, Count of Angouleme,
IOO-I
Baldwin, Archbishop of Canter"
bury, 22-3, 43, 45-6, 50,
69, 99
Baldwin of Bethune, see AumSle
Bardolph, Hugh, 47, 57, 6 5, 90,
H3
Baron, 279-80, 317
Basset, Alan, 236, 283
Bath, Bishops of, see Savaric; Jo*
celin of Wells
Beauchamp, William de, Lord of
Bedford, 229, 232, 257
Beaulieu (Hants), 106, 211,
247,250,275,311
Beauvais, Bishop of, see Philip of
Dreux
Becket, St. Thomas, Archbishop
of Canterbury, 10 n, 13, 19,
28, 31, 90, 146, 179, 221,
272
tt
Index
Berengaria, Queen of England, 52,
60, 83, 112, 1 60, 265-7
Bigod, see Norfolk, Earls of
Blanche of Castile, 957, 102,
1 1 6, 260, 263
Blundevill, Ramilf de, see Chester
Bordeaux, Archhishop of, 97,
100-1, 247
Boulogne, Count of (Reginald of
Dammartin ) , 1 767, 1 9 34,
197, 209, 213-16
Bouvines, Battle of, 21317
Brabant, Dukes of, 209, 227
Braose, Giles de, Bishop of Here-
ford, 151, 156, 192
Braose, Maude de, 157, 1712,
308
Braose, William de, 1567, 171
3, 177, 193
BreautS, Falkes de, 257, 259-
61, 268, 270
Bridges and Rivers, 2967, 302,
312
Bruyere, William, 47, 57, 67,
194, 257
Buck, Walter, 251, 257
Burgh, Hubert de, Seneschal of
Normandy, in, 117, 236,
265, 267-8
Bury St. Edmunds, 44, 67, 90,
221-2, 261
Canterbury, Archbishops of, see
Theobald; Becket, Thomas;
Walter, Hubert; Langton,
Stephen
Canterbury, Monks of, 22-3, 69,
Canterbury, Monks of (continued)
1*9-33* I39-4I* 144-5*
165-6, 192
Cashel, Council of, 3 1
Castle-guard, 300-1
Celestine III, Pope, 52, 56, 58,
70, 75-6, 138
Chaius, 77-8
Chateau-Gaillard, 120, 122, 125,
135, 178, 230
ChSteauroux, 37
Chester, Earl of (Ranulf de Blun-
devill), 70, 86, 88, 94, 193,
233
Chichester, Bishops of, see Fitz-
Robert, Simon; Poore, Richard
Chinon, 14, 16, 39-40, 76, 80,
94, 112, 114, 128, 212
Christina, d. of Robert FitzWal-
ter, 230
Cistercians, 66, 1056, 154,
161, 174, 217, 271, 275
Clare, Earls of:
Richard, 19, 86, 88, 228
Gilbert, 228, 240
Clare, Isabella de, 89, 173, 228
Clare, Richard de, see Pembroke
Clarendon, Constitutions of, 309
Clement III, Pope, 46, 50-1,
138
Columbieres, 39
Columbus, Master, 133
Compifegne, 120
Compurgation, 306
Comyn, John, Archbishop of Dub-
lin, 32, 36, 194, 236, 247
Conan the Little, 1 2, 79
Conches, 93
Index
Constance of Brittany, 1 2, 79, 84,
86, 94
Constance of Castile, 1 1
Corfe Castle, 116, 191, 195,
223, 268, 317
Cornwall, County of, 18, 43, 58
Cornwall, Earls of:
Reginald, 18, 42, 233
Henry, 233
Cottingham, 106
Courcy, John de, 34, 172
Coventry, Bishop of, see Hugh of
Nunant
Darrein Presentment, 294
David, brother of King of Scot-
land, see Huntingdon, Earl of
Debts, collection of, 2867, 299
Derby, Earl of (William de Per-
rars), 86, 88
Dervorgil, wife of Tiernan
O'Rourke, 28-9
Devon, County of, 43, 58
Dieppe, 91
Doncaster, 65
Dorset, County of, 43, 58
Dover Castle, siege of, 25770
Driencourt, 689, 108
Dublin, 2933
Dublin, Archbishop of, see Comyn,
John
Dumferline, 91
Duncan of Carrick, 173
Dunstable, 208
Durand, Templar, 176
Durham, Bishops of, see Pudsey,
Hugh; Philip of Pictavia
Durrow, 35
Edward, St., King of England,
166, 201, 223, 318
Ela, d. of Earl of Salisbury, 193
Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of
England: marriage to Louis VII,
8; marriage to Henry II, 9;
joins revolt, 16; in confinement,
19; released, 23; progress
through England, 42; with Rich"
ard in Normandy, 45; brings
Berengaria to Messina, 52; for-
bids John to join Philip, 60;
raises money for Richard, 667;
goes to Germany, 689; at
Beaufort, 83; takes Anjou and
Maine, 856; goes to Castile,
95; returns, 97; rescued by
John, 115; death, 123; men"
tioned, 3, 4, 12, 49, 61, 73,
99, 108
Eleanor, d. of Henry II, 9, 95
Elias of Brantfield, 141
Ely, Bishops of, see Longchamp,
William; Eustace
Essex, Earls of:
William de Mandeville, 36,
286
Geoffrey FitzPeter, 47, 57, 80,
8891, 102, 109, rn, 117-
18, 121, 130, 158, 194, 200,
204, 212, 229, 274, 315
Geoffrey de Mandeville, 100,
22930, 261
Esturmy, Thomas, 124
Eu, Count of (Ralph of Issoudon),
108, 112, 210
Eustace, Bishop of Ely, 1489,
Index
Eustace, Bishop of Ely (contin-
ued)
151, 167-8, 192, 212, 224-
5
Eustace, a singer, 103
Eva, d. of Dermot MacMurrough,
28-9, 89
Eva, nurse of Richard, 161
Evreux, Count of (Amaurus), 19,
100
Eye (Suffolk), 43, 74
Falaise, 7, 1 1 6
Farm of Counties, 298
Ferns, 28, 30
Ferrand, see Flanders, Count of
Ferrars, William, Earl of, 193
4
Ferrers, William de, see Derby
FitzGerald, Maurice, 28-9
FitzGerald, Warin, 194
FitzGilbert, Richard, see Pembroke
FitzHenry, Meiler, 1723
FitzHerbert, Matthew, 236
FitzHerbert, Peter, 194, 236
FitzHugh, John, 118, 158, 236
FitzNicholas, Ralph, 184-5
FitzParnell, Robert, see Leicester
FitzParnell, Roger, Bishop of St.
Andrews, 91, 106
FitzPeter, Geoffrey, see Essex
FitzRobert, Simon, Bishop of Chi"
Chester, 218
FitzStephen, Robert, 28-9
FitzWalter, Robert, 119, 181-2,
192, 198, 2268, 2301,
240, 244, 260
FitzWalter, Theobald, 70
Flanders, Counts of:
Baldwin IX, 92
Ferrand, 196, 209, 214-16
Foliot, Gilbert, Bishop of London,
10, 13, 22
Fontevrault, 41, 78, 81-2, 97,
Forests, 310-12, 318
Forfeiture, 301, 310
Fors, William de, see Aumale
Gant, Gilbert de, 270
Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, 9, 12,
Geoffrey, son of Henry II, 9, 1 2,
14, 16-19, ^1-3* 3S- 6 * 47*
79* 84
Geoffrey, bastard son of Henry II
and Archbishop of York, 36,
40, 45, 48-53* 58-9* 65,
71, 88, 92, 96-7, 102-4,
106-7, 143-4, 152, 174,
188, 248
Geoffrey, Exchequer clerk, 169
Geoffrey of Crawcombe, 251, 256
Geoffrey of Dereham, 133
Geoffrey of Lusignan, 21011
Gerald of Wales, 5, 27, 29, 31,
33
Gernon, William, 247
Gervase, Sacristan of Reading, 156 *
Qesta Stephani, 20
Gilbertines, 66
Glanville, Gilbert de, Bishop of
Rochester, 129, 152, 236
Glanville, Ranulf de, 33, 89, 132,
^35
Gloucester, City of, 1 1 1, 223
Index
Gloucester, County of, 58
Gloucester, Earldom of, 43, 74
Gloucester, Earls of:
Robert, 18
William, 18, 228
Godric, St., 73-4
Gournaye, Hugh de, 119
Great Charter, 202, 231, 234-
42, 244, 246-8, Appendix
Gregory VII, Pope, 194
Grey, John, Bishop of Norwich,
45, i3*-4> I39-4L 144-7*
152, 172-4, 189, 194, 200,
209, 213, 217-18, 249
Grey, Walter, Bishop of Worces-
ter and Archbishop of York,
217, 236, 247, 249, 256-7
Gualo, Papal Legate, 262-4, 318
Guernsey, 200
Gunnor, wife of Robert Fitz Walter,
226
Guy of Thouars, 94
Hadwisa of Gloucester, Queen of
England, 19, 43, 63, 99-100,
230
Haia, Nicholaa de, 47
Hamelin, see Warenne, Earls of
Hardington, Thomas, 1845,
209, 251, 256
Harengod, Stephen, 243
Helen, nurse of Henry III, 161
Henry I, King of England, 9, 1 8
19, 28, in, 142, 172, 233,
235, 288; laws of, 200-3,
2213, 318
Henry II, King of England: char"
Henry II, King of England (con"
tinned}
acter and appearance, 49,
272-4; government of, 8, 55,
86, 10910, 142; marriage
and coronation, 9; has young
Henry crowned, 10; makes
peace with Louis, u; divides
lands among sons, 1 2; and mur-
der of Becket, 1314, 31; and
Ireland, 13, 25-32, 34~5; re "
volt of sons, 1417; makes
John Lord of Ireland, 19; elec-
tion of Archbishop of Canter-
bury, 223; prepares for war
with Philip, 36; proposes peace,
37; war with Philip, 38; de-
feat, 39; death, 401; legal re-
forms of, 235-6, 293, 302-
3, 308; mentioned, 3, 20, 44,
49-5, 58, 8 1, 84, 88-9,
97-8, 104, 107-8, 135, 193,
2289, 260, 31718
Henry HI, King of England, 148,
161, 271-2, 318-19
Henry VII, King of England, no
Henry VIII, King of England,
Henry VI, Emperor, 63-9, 75,
Henry, Count Palatine, 161
Henry, son of Henry II: birth, 9;
coronation, 10; marriage, n;
receives lands, 1 2; revolts, 1 4
18; in Normandy, 19; dies, 21;
mentioned, 88, 227
Henry of Braybroc, 233
Henry of Cornhill, 145, 233
Index
Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony,
Hereford, Bishop of, see Braose,
Giles de
Hitcham (Sufiolk), 67
Holland, Count of, 196, 209,
Honorius, Archdeacon of Rich"
mond, 133
Hoveden (Yorks) 59, 74
Hugh of Avalon, St., Bishop of
Lincoln, 7, 57, 70, 81-4,
104-5
Hugh of Boves, 2 13-1 5, 243,
247, *5*
Hugh of Lusignan, see La Marche
Hugh of Nunant, Bishop of Cov-
entry, 36, 45-6, 53-4, 57,
68, 72, 74, 76
Hugh of St. Victor, 156
Hugh of Wells, Bishop of Lincoln,
163, 192, 236
Humbert III, Count of Maurienne,
1416
Huntingdon, David, Earl of, 43,
70, 86, 91, 104, 1 8 1, 243
Huntingfield, William, 240
Ida of Boulogne, 176
Ingeborg of Denmark, Queen of
France, 9, 1012, 190
Innocent III, Pope: reproves John,
1212; receives Sub-Prior Regi-
nald, 1312; receives delega-
tion from John, 133; postpones
Canterbury decision, 134; chap
acter of, 138-9, 165; delivers
decision, 1389; has Stephen
Innocent III, Pope (continued')
Langton elected, 1401; inter-
dicts York, 143; consecrates
Langton, 144; John's remon-
strance to, 146; reply, 147;
threatens interdict, 1489; inter-
dicts England, 151, 1 6 1, 164;
supports Otto, 1 60 i; excom-
municates John, 1678; breaks
with Otto, 174; decrees John's
deposition, 1878; orders bish-
oprics filled, 207; orders in-
terdict lifted, 212; confirms
charter to Church, 225; annuls
Great Charter, 2468; annuls
election of Simon Langton, 249,
2567; excommunicates disturb-
ers, 250, 259; forbids Philip
to invade England, 262; men-
tioned, 90, 92, 96, 101, 171,
194, 203, 210, 218, 266
Interdict: of France, 96, 100; of
Province of York, 143; of Eng-
land: threatened, 1489; im-
posed, 151; effects of, 152-5,
1 6 1-2, 164-5, I ^7> lifted,
212-13
Interest, rates of, 2867
Ipswich, 67, 190, 268
Ireland: Henry II and, 13, 25-
6; John created Lord of, 19;
John's first visit to, 25, 304;
prior to John's arrival, 2530;
John's return and coronation
planned, 25-6; John's second
visit to, 1714
Isabella of Angouleme, Queen of
England, 100-1, 107-8, 112,
Index
Isabella of Angouleme ( contin-
ued)
118-19, 125, ^S* M4*
185-6, 210, 223
Isabella, Queen of France, 96
Isabella, d. of King John, 2x3
Isabella, d. of William the Lion,
37, 162, 317
Isabella, bastard d. of William the
Lion, 37, 104, 227, 317
James of Poterne, 1023, 107
Jews: under King's protection,
16970; taxation of, 182; as
moneylenders, 2867
Joan, d. of King John, 36, 174,
211
Joan, bastard d. of King John, 3 6,
175, 180
Joanna, d. of Henry II, 9
Jocelin, Bishop of Salisbury, 10,
13
Jocelin of Brakelond, 90
Jocelin of Wells, Bishop of Bath,
163, 192, 236
John, King of England: parent'
age, 39; birth, 9; made Count
of Mortain, 12; betrothed to
Alice of Maurienne, 1416;
lands assigned to, 17; betrothed
to Hadwisa of Gloucester, 18-
19; created Lord of Ireland, 19;
attacks Richard, 212; at elec-
tion of Archbishop of Canter"
bury, 22-3; knighted, 25; sent
to Ireland, 25, 324; return
and coronation planned, 356;
commands army in Normandy,
John, King of England (contin-
ued)
36; marriage to Alice of France
proposed, 37; joins Philip, 38;
father learns of his treachery, 40;
Richard confirms his lands, 42;
married to Hadwisa, 43; expedi-
tion to Wales, 44; accompanies
Richard to Normandy, 45; con-
flict with Longchamp, 4658;
visits Bishop of Durham, 59;
plots with Philip, 60, 63; claims
crown, 64-71; reconciled with
Richard, 724; succession to
throne, 7980, 86; visits Fon-
tevraud, 812; at Easter Mass,
83; takes Le Mans, 84; Duke
of Normandy, 85; coronation,
8789; makes Hubert Walter
Chancellor, 90; crosses to Nor-
mandy, 91; conference with
Philip, 923; drives him out
of Maine, 94; Treaty of Le
Goulet, 95, 97, 160; levies
carucage, 96; position In France,
98; goes to Aquitaine, 99; di-
vorces Hadwisa, TOO; marries
Isabella, i o i ; brings her to Eng-
land, 102; receives homage of
William the Lion, 104; at St.
Hugh's funeral, 105; founds aV
bey at Beaulieu, 106; progress
through North, 107; crown'
wearing, 108; summons army,
1 08 n; crosses to Normandy,
11213; summons Arthur,
114; rescues Eleanor, 115;
death of Arthur, 11617, 157,
Index
John, King of England (contin-
ued)
173; conduct in Normandy,
11820; returns to England,
121; scutage of 1204, 122;
death of Eleanor, 1234; l ss
of Normandy, 1258; death of
Hubert Walter, 130; election
of John Grey, 1323; goes to
Poitou, 134-5; t* 1106 * I 37 re-
turns to England, 138; levies tax,
1413; anger at monks of Can-
terbury, 1445; remonstrates
with Pope, 1467; refuses to re-
ceive Langton, 1 4 85 1 ; reply to
interdict, i55~7* 164-7; al-
liance with Otto, 1 5 8-6 1, 197,
209; treaty with Scots and
Welsh, 162; appoints Bishop
of Lincoln, 163; excommuni-
cated, 16771; expedition to
Ireland, 1714; to Wales,
175; meets Pandulf, 176; re-
ceives Reginald of Boulogne,
177; knights Alexander of Scot-
land, 178; hangs Welsh host"
ages, 1 80; rising feeling against
him, 1813; sends embassy to
Sultan, 184-6; deposition de*
creed, 1878; summons army,
189; negotiates with Pandulf,
190; submits to Pope, 191
6; summons Langton, 198; ab"
solved, 199; determines to pun'
ish barons, 2001; appoints
Peter des Roches Justiciar, 204;
compensation of clergy, 2056,
209; fills bishoprics, 2078;
John, King of England (contin-
ued)
goes to Poitou, 21013; negori"
ates for prisoners, 21516; truce
with Philip, 2 1 7; levies scutage,
21921; charter to Church,
222, 224, 2367; meets bar-
ons in London, 223; takes Cru-
sader's Cross, 224; negotiates
with barons, 2303; seals Great
Charter, 23442; dismisses mer-
cenaries, 2434; sen( k Charter
to Pope, 2458; protests elec-
tion of Simon Langton, 249,
256; collects army, 2512;
besieges Rochester, 2535; re-
duces the North, 257-61, and
East Anglia, 2612, 2689;
guards ports, 264; retreats to
Winchester, 265; writes to Be"
rengaria, 2657; on Welsh
border, 268; in Lincolnshire,
26970; loses treasure, falls ill,
271; death and burial, 272;
character, 2725. See also Ap-
pendix
John le Gros, 106
John of Anagni, Cardinal, 37, 51
John of Salisbury, 26
Joigny, Peter de, 144
Judicial Procedure, 3058, 315
16
Jumieges, 74
Jury, Trial by, 305-7
Knight'service, 220, 2767, 280,
288, 292-3, 304
Index
Lacy, Hugh de, Lord of Ulster,
31-2, 34-5, 171-2
Lacy, John de, Constable of Ches-
ter, 230, 241
Lacy, Roger de, Constable of Ches-
ter, 58, 86, 104, iii-i2,
120, 122-3, *7 8 > 230
Lacy, Walter de, Lord of Meath,
1712
La Ferte-Bernard, 37
La Marche, Count of (Hugh of
Lusignan), 101, 108, 112,
115, 210 1 1
Lambeth, Treaty of, 318
Land: ownership of, 2768, 294,
3023; inheritance of, 278,
2801, 294, 299; forfeiture
of, 3001, 310
Langton, Simon, 14950, 195,
208, 249, 256, 264-5
Langton, Stephen, Cardinal, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury: election,
140-1, 144-9, I 5 I > 165-7;
attempts to go to England, 157
8; consecrates Bishop of Lin-
coln, 163; negotiations for re-
turn, 176, 192, 195; returns
to England, 198203; restitu-
tion to clergy, 2069, 212; and
Great Charter, 2214, 2301,
and election of Simon Langton,
2489; suspended, 2501,
256; mentioned, 161, 177,
215, 218, 243, 253, 308,
3*9
La Rochelle, 135, 138, 210
Laudabiliter, Bull, 26-7, 30-1
Lavardin, 94
Lateran, Fourth Council of, 248,
250, 306
Le Goulet, Treaty of, 95, 97, 1 14
Leicester, Earls of:
Robert of Beaumont, 228
Robert FitzParnell, 43, 73, 88,
106, 228
Simon de Monfort, 228
Le Mans, 38, 40, 84-5, 94, 115
Leopold, Duke of Austria, 61,
.63
Limoges, 16
Lincoln, Bishops of, see Hugh of
Avalon; Walter of Coutances;
William of Blois; Hugh of
Wells
Lincoln Castle, 47, 270
Lincoln, City of, 1046, 268
Lincoln County, 478, 258, 269
Lisieux, 72
Lismore, 33
Llanstephan, 44
Llywelyn ap lorwerth, 175, 180,
316
Lombard, Peter, 156
London: granted commune, 545;
description of, 17980; rights
of, 290
London, Bishops of, see Foliot,
Gilbert; William of Ste-Mere
TEglise
Longchamp, William, Bishop of
Ely, 45-9, 52-8, 60-1, 67,
69-70, 76
Lorraine, Duke of, 209
Loudon, 1 6
Lough Derg, 28
X
Index
Louis VI, King of France, 74, 93
Louis VII, King of France, 8, 1 1,
14, 16-17, 3 6
Louis VIII, King of France, 84,
957, 102, 116, 212, 260
5, 267-8, 270-1, 318
Lucius III, Pope, 36
Lucy, Godfrey de, Bishop of Win"
Chester, 45
Lusignan Family, see Eu, Count
of; Geoffrey; La Marche, Count
of
Lutterel, Geoffrey, 247
Mabel of Gloucester, Countess of
Evreux, 19, 100
MacMurrough, Dermot, King of
Leinster, 2730, 89
Magna Carta, see Great Charter
Mallett, William, 229, 240
Mandeville, see Essex, Earls of
Margaret, St., Queen of Scotland,
9 r
Margaret, d. of Louis VII, 1 1
Margaret, d. of William the Lion,
37, 162, 317
Margaret, bastard d. of William
the Lion, 37, 104, 181, 227,
317
Marshal, John, 88
Marshal, John, the younger, 233,
236, 247, 257
Marshal, Richard, 173
Marshal, William, see Pembroke,
Earls of
Martell, Brother Alan, 211
Martigny, Geoffrey de, 186
Matilda, the Empress, 26
Matilda, d. of Henry II, 9, 23, 92
159, 260
Matilda, " The Chaste," d. of Rot
ert Fitz Walter, 227
Matthew of Clare, 53, 56
Maude, d. of Count of Boulogne
177
Mauger, Bishop of Worceste 1
121-2, 148-9, 151, 167-?
Maulay, Peter de, 210, 226
MauUon, Savaric de, 1 1 6, 1 3
232, 251, 254-5, 257* *S9
60
Maurienne, Count of, see Humbei
Mellifont, 28
Mercadier, 74, 778, 85
Messina, 47, 51, 54, 273
Milford Haven, 30, 32
Milli, 74
Mirebeau, 16, 11516, 126, 26
Montauban, 1357
Montferrat, 14
Montfort, Simon de, see Leiceste
Mortain, Count of, 12, 42, 74
177 ,
Mort d a Ancestor, Assize of, 294
Mowbray, William, 86, 2285
240
Muhammad al^Nasir, "Murmelius,
184-5
Nesta, 28, 172
Neville, Hugh de, 126, 233, 236
265
Nicholas of Tusculum, Cardinal
203, 205-10, 212-13, 213
222
Index
Norfolk, Earls of:
Hugh Bigod, 228
Roger Bigod, 88, 104, 228,
240
Norfolk, Juliana, Countess of, 228
Norham (Northumberland), 162
Northampton, Assize of, 305
Norwich, Bishop of, see Grey, John
Novel Disseisin, Assize of, 294
Novent, 211
O'Connor, Rory, High King of
Ireland, 28-30, 32, 171
Octavian, Cardinal, 36
Odinell of Umframvaie, 186
O'Meyey, Gilla-gan-inathar, 35
Ordeals, Judicial, 293, 303, 305-
7* 315
Origen, 156
O'Rourke, Tiernan, 279, 31
Osney (Oxon), Monks of, 204
Otto IV, Emperor, 92, 95, 158-
61, 174, 182, 184, 197, 209,
213-15, 217
Otto, Count of Wittelsbach, 161
Ovid, quoted, 75
Oxford, 9, 19, 32, 44, 46, 122,
134, 162-3, 23-4> 23
Oxford, Earls of:
Aubrey de Vere, 2289
Robert de Vere, 2289, 240,
262
Pandulf, 176, 1 8 8, 1901, 194-
6, 198, 205, 208-9, 235-
6, 246-50, 263
Paris, ii, 35, 56, 84, 112, 177,
"5
Paris, Matthew, quoted, 87, i^
179, 182, 184-6, 203-
206, 240, 275
Parthenai, 211
Peak, The (Derbs) 43, 66
Pembroke and Striguil, Earls of:
Richard FitzGilbert (Stro
bow), 28-30, 32, 89, i
William Marshal, 40, 47-
57* 79-8o, 84, 88-9, ii
12, 126-8, 134, 173, i?
189, 194, 224, 228-3
233-4, *3 6 > 2< 5o, 271
William Marshal the young
229, 240, 265
Percy, Richard, 227, 240
Peter of Capua, Cardinal, 92
Peter of Pontefract, 1834, IC
195
Philip II, King of France : prepa
for war with Henry, 36; neg<
ates for peace, 37; makes war
Henry, 3840; meets Rich;
at Vezelay, 5 1 ; returns fr<
Crusade, 60; plots with Jo]
634, 689, 712; inva<
Normandy, 65; treaty w
Richard, 67; attacks Rouen, j
war with Richard, 767; tal
Arthur, 845; truce with Jol
91; knights Arthur, 92; \
with John, 934; Treaty of
Goulet, 957; marital diffic
ties, 96, 1012; helps Li
gnan family, 108; enterta
John, 112; conference and w
11415; attacks Norman<
11819; besieges Chateau'G
Xtt
Index
Philip II, King of France (contin-
ued)
lard, 12.0, 122-3, 178; claims
Normandy, 121, 125, 128,
158; in Poitou, 134-7; expels
Count of Boulogne, 177; pre-
pares to invade England, 190
i, 193; fleet destroyed, 196-
7; at Battle of Bouvines, 213
17; invades England, 2601;
mentioned, 141, 146, 161,
167, 174, 183-4, 188-9,
209, 226
Philip, Duke of Swabia, 159-61
Philip, son of King Richard, 1 1 1
Philip Hurepel, son of King Philip,
177
Philip of Dreux, Bishop of Beau-
vais, 74-6, 92, 215
Philip of Pictavia, Bishop of Dur-
ham, 88, 91, 104, 112, 152
Pinel, Henry, 183
Planes, Roger de, 54
Pleas: common, 293; of the
Crown, 293, 297-8
Ponthieu, Count of, 38
Pontibus, Reginald de, 210-11
Poore, Richard, Bishop of Chiches-
ter, 218
Predpe, Writ, 302-3
Pudsey, Hugh, Bishop of Durham,
10, 43, 45, 50-1, 58-9, 66,
70-1, 73-4, 88
Purveyance, 3001
Quincy, Saer de, see Winchester
Raleigh, Ralph, 186
Ralph of Coggeshall, quoted, 1 1 6
17, 129, 255
Ralph of Issoudon, see Eu, Count
of
Raymond of Antioch, 8
Raymond, Count of St. Gilles, 16
Reading, Abbot of, 156, 232,
249
Reginald, Sub-Prior of Canterbury,
131-2, 134, 139, 144
Reginald of Cornhill, 14950
Reginald of Dammartin, see Bou-
logne, Count of
Relief, 142, 182, 221, 279-82
Rhys ap Gryffud, 44
Richard I, King of England: birth,
9; receives Aquitaine, 12; re-
volts against father, 14, 1617;
feeling for Aquitaine, 20; com-
mands army in Normandy, 36;
joins Philip, 37; makes war on
father, 3840; at father's bier,
41; returns to England, 42;
crowned, 43; prepares for Cru-
sade, 44-7; in Sicily, 47, 5 1-
2; nominates Geoffrey Archbish-
op of York, 501; in Holy
Land, 62; capture, 63-4; ran-
som, 659; returns to England,
70-1, 108; reconciled with
John, 72-4; imprisons Philip of
Dreux, 75-6; death, 77-8,
159-60; funeral, 81; charac-
ter, 272-4; mentioned, 4-6,
18-19, 23, 58, 60-1, 84,
87-90, 97-8, in, 113,
Index
Richard I, King of England (con"
tinned}
116, 121, 123, 127, 135,
142, 161, 215, 238, 314
Richard, son of King John, 161,
211, 226
Richard of Devizes, quoted, 45,
179-80, 285
Rivers, see Bridges
Robert, son of Count of Dreux,
211 16
Robert of London, 1846
Robert of Nunant, 68
Robert of Roppesley, 236
Robert of Turnham, 65, 81, 113
Robert of Valognes, 226
Roches, Peter des, Bishop of Win"
Chester, 130, 148, 151, 195,
200, 204-5* 210, 213, 216,
219, 232, 249-50, 291
Rochester, Bishops of, see Walter;
Glanville, Gilbert de
Rochester, Siege of, 2535, 268
Roger, Archbishop of York, 10
I 1 * i3 59
Roger of Hoveden, quoted, 43,
S 6 > 8 5> 95* 97* ioo, 116
Roger of Wendover, quoted, 76,
105, 125, 135, 141, 151,
156, 162, 168-71, 182-3,
187, 190-1, 195, 197, 199,
207, 221, 224, 226, 230,
233-4, 236, 241, 246, 251-
2, 254, 259, 271
Rollo, Duke of Normandy, 121
Ros, Robert de, 104, 148, 227,
240, 317
Rosamund Clifford, "The Fair/
Rotrou, Archbishop of Rouen, i r
Rouen, Archbishops of, see Rotrou;
Walter of Coutances
Royal Demesne, 277, 298
St. Albans, 67, 90, 186, 198,
221
St. Andrews, Bishop of, see Fitz*
Parnell, Roger
St. Michael's Mount (Cornwall),
70
Saladin, 623
Salisbury, Bishops of, see Jocelin;
Walter, Hubert
Salisbury, Earls of:
Patrick, 88
William, 193
William Longsword, 88, 193
4, 196-7, 209, 214-16, 233,
236, 257, 259-60, 265
Samson, Abbot of Bury St. Ed"
munds, 67
Sancho, King of Navarre, 73
Sancho I, King of Portugal, i oo
Sanford, Thomas, 210
Saumur, 39
Savaric, Bishop of Bath, 43, 45,
69
Say, Beatrice de, 89
Scutage, 142, 176, 1 8 1, 219-
21, 288-90, 292
Sibyl, d. of Earl of Salisbury, 88
Simon of Pattishull, 181
Soceinne, Gerard and Godeschal
de, 251
XIV
Index
Stephen, King of England, 9, 14,
228, 293
Striguil, Earls of, see Pembroke
Strongbow, see Pembroke, Earls
of
Stuteville, William de, 47, 91,
106-7, 2 98
Swabia, Duke of, see Philip
Swine, Battle of the, 1967
Sylvester of Evesham, Bishop of
Worcester, 272
Talbot, William, 169
Tewkesbury, 108, 126, 268
Teynham, 129
Theobald, Archbishop of Canter-
bury, 9
Theodoric the German, 223
Tibragny, 33
Tickhill (Notts), 43, 48, 58, 66,
70-1, 91
Toulouse, 1 6
Tours, 39-40, 49, 51, 84
Trade, Foreign, 3089
Trenchemere, Alan, 65
Tristan, Pierre, 214
Urban HI, Pope, 36
Vaudreuil, 80, 119, 2267
Vaux, Robert de, 183
Vere, Aubrey de, see Oxford
Verneuil, 723
Vernon, 97, 99, 116
Vesci, Eustace de, 104, 1812,
192, 198, 227, 240, 317
Vexin, n, 64, 92
V6zelay, 51-2
Villeins, 237, 293. 37
Wales: John's expedition to, 44;
second expedition to, 175; hang-
ing of hostages, 180, 313; and
Great Charter, 316
Wallingford, 43, 64, 66, 205
Walter, Bishop of Rochester, i o
Walter, Hubert, Bishop of Salis-
bury and Archbishop of Can-
terbury: accompanies Richard to
Normandy, 45; protests Geof-
frey's election as Archbishop of
York, 50-1; elected Archbishop
of Canterbury, 69; appointed
Chief Justiciar, 70; joins Rich-
ard at Nottingham, 71; helps
John secure succession, 7980;
crowns John, 878; appointed
Chancellor, 8991; crowns
John and Isabella, 103; at fu-
neral of St. Hugh of Avalon,
105; entertains John and Isa-
bella, 1 08; awarded Windsor
Castle, 1 1 8; dissuades John
from expedition to France, 1 27,
134; death of, 23, 129; as
administrator, 109, 121, 129
30, 143, 235, 274, 297;
mentioned, 106, 1313, 204
Walter of Coutances, Bishop of
Lincoln and Archbishop of Rou-
en, 47-8, 50, 52, 54-7,
60-1, 68-70, 76, 85
Walter of Preston, 181
Wardship, 182, 221, 282-4,
304-5.
Index
Ware, 232
Wareham, 128, 195
Warenne, Earls of:
Hamelin, 88, 193
William, 193-4, 233* 23 6 *
265
Warwick, Countess of, 227
Warwick, Waleran, Earl of, 86,
88
Waterford, 29-30, 32-3
Westminster, 9, 10, 87-8, 188,
203
Wexford, 29
Widows, 284-7, 299
William I, King of England, 7, 59,
1 66, 194, 276-7
William II (Rufus), King of Eng<
land, 194, 202-3
William the Lion, King of Scot'
land: joins revolt of 1173, 17;
treaty with Richard, 44-5, 50;
claims Northern counties, 90-1;
refuses to come to John, 96;
does homage to John, 104-5;
receives exiles, 152; treaty with
John, 162; warns John against
barons, 180; death, 223; men"
tioned, 36-7, 70, 1 06, 178,
227, 317
William, son of Henry II, 9
William of Albini, Lord of Belvoir,
no, 148, 233, 245, 252-5,
258-9
William of Blois, Bishop of Lin*
coin, 163
William of Montacute, 229
William of Ste'Mere 1'Eglise, Bish"
op of London, 133, 148-9,
151, 167-8, 192, 212, 236
William of Wendenat, 48
Wills, 299-300
Winchester, n, 19-20, 25, 48,
108, 141, 148, 198, 232
Winchester, Bishops of, see Lucy,
Godfrey de; Roches, Peter des
Winchester, Earl of (Saer de
Quincy), 119, 194, 226, 228,
240, 243, 260
Windsor, 23, 25, 54, 64-6, 168,
173' 178* *8, 234, 242,
257, 262
Witsand (Flanders), 52
Women, Appeals by, 314-15
Worcester, 44, 88, 96, 223
Worcester, Bishops of, see Wulf'
stan, St.; Baldwin; Mauger;
Grey, Walter; Sylvester of
Evesham
Writ of Inquisition of Life and
Limbs, 303-4
Wulfstan, St., Bishop of Worces"
ter, 108, 121-2, 166, 272
York, 50, 96, 107, 174, 258
York, Archbishops of, see Roger;
Geoffrey; Grey, Walter
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
JOHN T(ATE) APPLEBY was born in Fayetteville, Arkan-
sas, on June 10, 1907, He is a graduate of Harvard Uni-
versity, Class of 1928. In 1948 the East Anglian Pub-
lishing Company, Ipswich, Suffolk, England, published
Suffolk Summer, an account of the author's experiences as
a member of the 8th Air Force during the war. Mr. Appleby
turned over the royalties to the Borough of Bury St. Ed-
munds for the upkeep of the Abbey Gardens. The book sold
some 10,000 copies, and with the revenue the Borough
made a rose garden in a corner of the Abbey grounds
on the site of the great Abbey where the barons met in 1 2 14
and swore their oath to force King John to grant them the
charter that in due course became Magna Carta. The garden
is dedicated to the memory of the British and American air-
men who lost their lives in World War II. The Rose So-
ciety of Great Britain has several times named it as the best
of the municipally kept rose gardens in England.
Mr. Appleby lives in Washington, D.C., and is cur-
rently engaged on a biography of King John's father,
Henry H.
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
THE text of this book was set on the Linotype in a face
called Eldorado, so named by its designer, WILLIAM
ADDISON DWIGGINS, as an echo of Spanish adventures
in the Western World, The series of experiments that
culminated in this type-face began in iQ4z; the designer
was trying a page more "brunette" than the usual book
type. "One wanted a face that should be sturdy, and yet
not too mechanical, . . . Another desideratum was that
the face should be narrowish, compact, and close fitted,
for reasons of economy of materials/' The specimen that
started Dwiggins on his way was a type design used by
the Spanish printer A, de Sancha at Madrid about 1774.
Eldorado, however, is in no direct way a copy of that
letter, though it does reflect the Madrid specimen in the
anatomy of its arches, curves, and junctions, Of special
interest in the lowercase letters are die stresses of color in
the blunt, sturdy serifs, subtly counterbalanced by the
emphatic weight of some of the terminal curves and
finials. The roman capitals are relatively open, and
THE BOOK has been composed, printed, and bound by
THE PLIMPTON PRESS, Norwood, Massachusetts,
PAPER manufactured by P. H. GLATFELTER COM"
PANY, Spring Qrm, Pennsylvania. TYPOGRAPHY by
CHARLES FARRELL. BINDING design by GUY
FLEMING,
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